Under Attack

Chapter Three

The plastic bag loaded with takeout Chinese was cutting off the circulation in my fingertips as I tried to shift my stuff—coat, laptop case, purse—and get my key into the lock. After four tries and an impressive show of inner-thigh muscle as I clenched the sliding bags between my knees, I got the apartment door open, grunting the whole time but managing to keep the mu shu upright. I dropped everything—except the takeout bag—in a heap on the floor when I saw what greeted me: a living room full of vampires, their faces pale and perfect, eyes narrowed, bee-stung lips full and dyed blood red. The house was in disarray and little droplets of blood spattered the coffee table, along with discarded bits of clothing and glasses knocked on their sides, plasma starting to congeal inside. Despite the blood on their lips, these vampires looked hungry. I blew out a sigh.

“Really, Vlad?”

Vlad sprung up from the flower-print easy chair and strode across the room toward me. His cold fingers chilled my arm as he steered me into the hall.

“We’re having an Empowerment meeting.”

“You didn’t tell me you guys have become the Slob Empowerment Movement.”

“Geez, Sophie, you’re as bad as Aunt Nina. I’ll clean up when we’re done. Promise.”

“Good. I have a meeting, too.” I swung the takeout bag in front of him.

“Another meeting of the Mu Shu Pork Society?” Vlad asked, crossing his arms and jutting out one hip.

I narrowed my eyes. “Just clean it up. You didn’t tell me you guys were meeting here today.”

“Do I have to tell you everything?”

I held my glare steady.

Vlad fluffed up his ascot. “We were chased out of the UDA by Lorraine. We need a place to meet. The Empowerment Movement is currently only in its infantile stages, so this is when we are most in need of a nurturing environment.” He smiled, a sweet, boyish smile that reminded me of the earnest kid he must have been—back in the eighteen hundreds or so.

“Shouldn’t you be meeting in a cemetery or something ?”

Vlad’s eyes widened. “Do you know one with mausoleum space?”

“Look, just wrap it up and give me fair warning the next time you plan on bringing the fang gang around.” I looked over his shoulder, eyeing the assembled vamps as they flipped through magazines and stuck skinny straws into their blood bags, à la Capri Sun. “You know I’m pro-vamp and I support the movement,” I glanced back at Vlad’s ascot and black-painted fingernails. “At least most of it. But Alex and I have some important business to discuss tonight.”

“The angel is back?”

Vlad’s eyebrows went up, but I stopped him before he could comment. “Yes. But this is just business—another case. So, can you wrap it up?”

“Geez,” Vlad said with an eye roll. “I can’t wait until I get my own place.”

“Not until you’re two hundred,” I muttered parentally as I followed him back into the apartment.

I set my bag down and nodded—graciously, though nervously—to Vlad’s vampire friends as they gathered up their trash and filed out the front door, Vlad in tow. I gave them a polite finger wave and then raced to the bathroom, telling myself that I was freshening up as a polite hostess and nothing more as I dabbed on a drywall layer of deodorant and slapped on some Siena Sunset lip stain. I undid the bun on the top of my head and my hair fell in soft, curled tendrils that swooped romantically around my face and stuck up like wheat grass in the back. I spent the next eight minutes pleading with said wheat-grass hair and finally finagled it in a downward direction with a handful of centuries-old Dippity-do that I found in the back of the medicine cabinet.

Deeming myself cosmetically presentable, I went back to the kitchen and unloaded the armful of takeout containers onto the dining room table, trying to arrange them artfully. If I couldn’t cook, the least I could do was arrange takeout beautifully. I finished off my Hang chow bounty with a meager-looking daisy stuck in a water glass. Not exactly The Slanted Door, but it would do.

I sucked in an anxious breath when I heard the lock tumble on the front door. My heart gave a little pitter of warmth that dropped down into my nether regions and I imagined myself gripping Alex by the lapels and dragging him into the living room, lip to passionate lip. Instead, I crossed my legs and forced myself to look nonchalant.

“Oh,” I sighed when I opened the door. “It’s you.”

Nina gave me a sour look. “Nice way to greet your roommate.”

I wrung my hands. “It’s just that I was expecting Alex.”

Nina gaped. “Don’t tell me you gave him a key now, too!”

I wagged my head and Nina arched an eyebrow. “I thought you weren’t sure you were interested in getting involved with him again.”

“What are you talking about? We’re just two old friends meeting for dinner.”

Nina sniffed at the air. “Hang chow?” She sniffed again. “And you sprang for the prawns chow fun.”

“I like prawns.”

Nina squinted and pointed at my pursed lips. “And that’s Siena Sunset. That’s name-brand product. You don’t shell out for shrimp and name-brand product for someone you’re not getting involved with. I bet you even shaved your legs.”

I bit my lip—whoops.

I sighed, a meager attempt to center myself. “I’m not exactly getting involved. I’m helping him with a case.” And possibly out of his clothes.... I put my hands on my hips. “And I thought you were anti-Alex.”

“I’m not anti-Alex. I’m pro-love. You’d be surprised how pro-love one becomes when they’re not getting enough blood to their personal parts.”

“So love is all about what gets to your personal parts?”

Nina licked her lips and winked. “Honey, love can be about anything having to do with the personal parts.”

“Silly me. I thought it was about the heart and all that malarkey.”

Nina waved a dismissive hand, twisting her glossy dark hair around her finger. “Eh, it’s all the same after a while.” She yanked open the fridge door and rooted around for a blood bag, then pulled herself up onto the kitchen counter and kicked off her shoes, aiming them into the dining room.

“So”—she took a long sip that crumpled her blood bag—“back to you and Alex.”

“A case,” I reiterated. “That’s all this is about. Shrimp chow fun, name-brand lip gloss—which was a free sample by the way—and that’s it. Just a case.” I was talking so loudly I was beginning to convince myself. “He’s coming over so we can discuss the particulars.”

“Discuss the particulars?” Nina’s lips went into a sleazy half-grin. “Something tells me I know the particulars you’re interested in... .”

“Uh, hello?”

Alex was standing in the open doorway, head cocked, eyebrows raised. I sucked in a traumatic breath, my body not knowing whether to die of embarrassment or of sheer desire.

Tonight, Alex Grace looked good enough to eat.

His pale grey T-shirt looked soft and was fraying a little at the collar. It stretched across his broad shoulders and the short sleeves were pulled taut against his thick, ropey muscles. His arms were crossed and the bottom edge of his tattoo—a single angel’s wing—poked out from underneath the fabric covering his left bicep. I worked hard to keep my eyes welcoming and friendly, but they kept slipping to Alex’s slim waist, to the way his well-worn jeans hung on him, and visions of him stepping out of those jeans clouded my “friendly” stance.

Alex held up a six-pack of beer and stepped into the apartment, kicking the door shut behind him. The click of the door and the clink of the beer bottles shook me out of my revelry.

“Hi. Nina and I, we were just ...”

There was a playful look of knowing in Alex’s eyes and I felt the heat of embarrassment wash over me. I looked down and went to work opening the beer, certain that my face was flushed as red as a midlife-crisis Corvette.

“So,” Nina began, “Sophie tells me there’s another mystery to be solved. Count me in.”

“Great.” Alex walloped the backpack I didn’t realize he was carrying onto the dining-room table, making the Chinese food and my pitiful flower jump.

I handed Alex his beer, our fingertips brushing in the exchange. My stomach did a little butterfly flutter and I took a quick pull from my beer, gulping a mouthful of foam.

“Is that mu shu?” Alex asked, sniffing at the air.

“Yes,” I said. Then I pointed at the backpack. “Is that your homework?”

Alex took a pair of chopsticks and the takeout box of mu shu. “I guess it’s our homework.”

Nina frowned. “There’s going to be reading in this one? I don’t know if I want to play anymore.” She pierced her blood bag with a single angled fang, sucked earnestly on what remained and then looked up, her full lips stained a deep red. “What are we after, anyway?”

“The Vessel of Souls,” Alex said in between bites.

I took my own takeout box and chopsticks and dug into some Kung Pao. “Hey, how do we even know the Vessel is here anyway? Shouldn’t it be like, in Europe—like Vatican City or something?”

Nina looked up from her second blood bag, eyebrows raised. “Rome? Okay, I’m back in.”

“The Vessel is definitely here. I’m sure of it.”

“Is your angel sense tingling?” I asked.

A flash of darkness skittered across Alex’s cobalt eyes and his smile dropped. “I know it’s here because Ophelia is here.”

I felt like I had been kicked in the stomach. Alex and I weren’t exclusive or even dating, really—and I had no idea where he went when he wasn’t stretched out drinking a beer on my couch or eating day-old donuts at the police station—but I still felt a sudden, illogical pang of jealousy.

“Who’s Ophelia?” Please say your mother, please say your mother, please say your mother, I silently prayed.

“Ophelia is a fallen angel.”

“Like you,” Nina said.

“No.” Alex shook his head, holding a piece of mu shu pork between poised chopsticks. “Not like me at all. She’s currently the head of the fallen and she’s very bad news. Evil bad.”

I had a faint sliver of hope that her being the head of the fallen meant she was horned or cross-eyed or wore gaucho pants.

“The head of the baddies?” Nina looked impressed. “Who do you have to kill to get that gig?”

Alex looked away. “Ophelia was why I left here—why I left San Francisco—the first time.”

I swallowed, not tasting my food. Instead I imagined Alex and his fallen-angel friend Ophelia frolicking on clouds and harmoniously strumming harps while I had spent those solitary six months after he disappeared in elastic-waist pants trolling the ice cream aisle at Cala Foods.

“Oh.” My voice came out a choked whisper.

“No—it wasn’t—wasn’t like that. The word got out that she was looking for me. So I decided I’d better find her first.”

“And did you find her?” Nina asked, toes tapping angrily, eyes narrowed in the ultra-protective best-friend mode.

“No.”

I felt remotely better. “So why is she here? And why does that mean the Vessel is, too?”

“Ophelia has been tracking the Vessel ever since—” Alex looked down at his hands, ashamed. “Ever since I lost it. She wants it for herself. She’s desperate for it—has been the whole time I’ve known her. Ophelia is the kind of woman who gets off on power. Lots of power.” Alex looked at Nina and me. “She’ll kill for it. And if she’s here, then the Vessel can’t be far off.”

I felt a breeze—like icy breath—creep up the back of my neck and I shivered. Hollow laughter rang out in my ear and I frowned, going to the kitchen window and scanning for errant, laughing kids. There was nothing but darkness and the occasional sound of horns honking so I slammed the window shut. The breeze went away, but the chill and the sound of laughter hung in my head for another few seconds.

“How do you know she’s back here? Have you”—I paused, tasting the bitterness of my words—“seen her?”

Alex wagged his head again, his dark curls bobbing. “No, thank God. But I’ve heard things. I know she’s here.”

I swallowed, waiting for the feeling of relief to wash over me. It didn’t.

Alex placed a thick file folder flat on the table and pushed it toward me. I glanced down. “Something tells me this isn’t the complete files of the Lolcats.”

I opened the file and the front page of a week-old San Francisco Chronicle was folded neatly on top. The headline blared HUNGARIAN DIPLOMAT AMONG CESSNA DEATHS. There was a full-color picture of the wreckage of the small plane in a shallow section of the bay; someone had drawn a red circle around a smudge of black on the wing of the plane. “Did you circle this?” I pointed to the smudge and Alex nodded.

“What is it?”

Alex took the file from me and rummaged past a few pages, then pulled out a tattered-looking Ziploc bag with a single black feather locked inside. I raised my eyebrows, squinted back at the circled smudge.

“That is that?” I asked skeptically.

“No. This”—Alex dangled the bag—“is from a different crime scene.” He pulled a sheaf of papers from the folder and dropped them in front of me. “But that,” he said, gesturing toward the circled smudge, “is also a black feather.”

Nina stood up. “Are you saying that both of these murders were committed by crows?” She slammed her fist into her palm. “Damn birds!”

I continued looking through the file. “Homicide,” I read, flipping through a thin file with another Ziploced black feather enclosed. “Accidental drowning ... victim was recovered on shore near Crissy Field, DOA, five-inch black feather was—ugh”—I shuddered—“recovered from victim’s throat. Murder-suicide in Por-tola Valley, one dead in fiery crash on Devil’s Canyon Slide.” I scanned the last article. “Brendan Joel found dead when his car went off the road.... Three-to-four-inch black crow feather found in the victim’s right hand.” I shook my head. “I don’t get it. What’s with the black feather?”

I held up my hand to silence Nina before she could answer.

“It’s like a sign. Every time the angelic plane crosses the human plane—”

Nina crossed her arms in front of her chest. “In non-Heaven speak, please.”

“Every time an angel touches a human, something is left behind.”

“I don’t remember any black feathers,” I said.

“I don’t have my wings, remember?”

“Well, if Ophelia is a fallen angel, too, how come she’s got hers to toss around all crazy?”

Alex’s eyes were downcast. “She’s embraced the darkness.”

“You mean she’s playing on Team Satan, right?” Nina asked.

“We try not to mention it.”

“So bad-good angels, like you, don’t leave anything behind?” I shrugged. “I guess that’s good.”

Alex took my hand, turned my wrist so it faced upward. There was a tiny red dot—as though from a ballpoint pen—on the pale flesh of my wrist. He smiled; I gawked.

“That’s from you?”

He dropped my hand. “You don’t have to look entirely disgusted.”

“I’m not, it’s just—”

“You were expecting a halo burn?”

I put my hands on my hips, tapped my foot angrily on the floor. “No, you make it hard to forget you’re a fallen angel.”

“Just be glad you’re not covered with those stupid crow feathers.” Nina shuddered. “Birds totally freak me out.”

Alex raised an eyebrow. “Doesn’t vampire trump fowl?”

“It was a pre-vamp thing,” I said, using my hand to partially cover my mouth. “She’s still not over it. So, this?” I brushed my index finger over the tiny strawberry-colored spot.

Alex shrugged, suddenly looking slightly bashful. “Yeah, sorry.”

“No, it’s ... kind of nice.” I felt the blush creep over my cheeks. “Anyway, back to the crime scene.”

“And the Vessel.”

“And the crow queen.”

Alex and I both swung to face Nina, who held her hands palm up and hunched her shoulders. “Sorry, sorry—just trying to help.”

I tapped my index finger against my chin. “So, Ophelia comes into town and just starts randomly killing people and that means the Vessel is here? That’s weird.”

Alex wagged his head. “I don’t think they’re random.”

I fanned out the photographs and newspaper clippings in front of me on the table. “A diplomat, a couple, a teacher ... some of these are outright murders, some of these look like accidents. I don’t get it; what’s the connection ?”

Alex sank onto one of the dining room chairs and began stacking the photos. “I think they were all guardians.”

Nina raised her black brows. “Of who?”

“Not who, what.” Alex looked at me. “The Vessel has seven guardians.”

“And there are six incidents with Ophelia’s trademark,” I said.

“She’s picking off the guardians?”

I eyed the fat stack. “Apparently, she’s pretty good at it. So, where’s the last guardian?”

“Lucky number seven?” Alex shrugged. “Don’t know. But I plan on finding him before Ophelia does.”

“And finding the Vessel.”

Nina came and sat at the table with us, leaning closer. “So back to this Ophelia chick. How do you know all this stuff about her?”

I saw the muscle twitch in Alex’s jaw. “Ophelia and I had a history.”

“Define history,” Nina said, one black eyebrow arched.

“Nina!” I hissed, secretly thankful for my best friend’s reliable nosiness.

“I’m asking because ‘history’ could mean a lot of things to people like us.” Nina gestured to herself and to Alex. “Like, we used to hit the movies together, or we assisted in overthrowing the Soviet power structure together.”

Alex looked at Nina, alarmed.

“She’s always had a thing for Russians,” I explained. “So, just for clarity’s sake, which was it? Dating or ... history?”

Alex suddenly became very interested in spearing his next bite of dinner. “The first one,” he finally murmured.

I swallowed, suddenly very aware of my stomach, of the mu shu pork that sat like a steel fist at the bottom of my gut. I forced a wan smile anyway. “How nice” was all I could muster.

Nina sat back in her chair. “So, this seems pretty cut and dry to me. Ophelia follows the Vessel, we follow Ophelia, nick the Vessel from her, and, bada-bing, bada-bang”—Nina slapped her hands together—“we hightail it to Rome to do some shoe shopping.”

“It’s not that easy. We need to find the Vessel before Ophelia does. That’s the bottom line. Once it’s in her hands, this world is as good as over.”

“Dramatic.”

I glared at Nina and let Alex continue.

“I figure I can hold off Ophelia while you go after the Vessel.”

Nina crossed her arms, shaking her head decidedly. “We don’t do minion work.”

Alex’s eyes were set hard as he glanced at Nina and me. “You need to stay away from Ophelia. She’s—she’s not like anything you’ve ever seen at the UDA.” I opened my mouth to protest, but Alex held up a silencing hand. “She’s evil incarnate.”

“But you don’t need to stay away from her?” I asked.

“She’s not going to expect me coming after her when the Vessel is near. I think she’ll assume I’m after the Vessel, too. Again.”

Nina arched an eyebrow. “Again?”

“Alex, um, was responsible ...”

Alex shrugged. “I lost the Vessel the first time. I went after it, found it, and then lost it.”

“How do you lose an ancient artifact stuffed with human souls? Did you leave it at the donut shop? Maybe trade it for a couple of maple glazed?”

I watched Alex’s jaw tighten. The taking—and losing—of the Vessel of Souls was a sore subject for him. I cleared my throat and tried to give Nina the look of death—loosely translated as “shut up already”—but she persisted.

“I mean, if I’m going to risk my afterlife to help you ...”

“You don’t have to risk anything. I asked for Sophie’s help.”

“Okay, if my best friend is going to risk her first life to help you ...”

“When Alex was in favor—” I started.

“I got duped, okay?” Alex said. “I heard about the Vessel, I lusted for it, I stole it, and then someone stole it from me.”

Nina sat back, impressed. “Way to get your wings cut off, lust monster.”

The look of sadness in Alex’s eyes stung. I wanted to slip my arms around him, to brush the clutch of curls that lolled over his forehead, but the air suddenly seemed heavy and charged. Somehow, a heartfelt “there, there” didn’t seem to suffice for someone who had stolen the Vessel that could change the fate of the world, had been thrown out of Heaven for it, and was now relegated to a life of day-old donuts and subpar mu shu in the earthly realm.

“What about the guy who stole it from you? Are you sure it’s not on his mantle somewhere? Maybe holding the remains of his Aunt Fanny or something?” Nina asked.

I watched Alex’s Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed thickly. “I’m sure. He was destroyed. The Vessel wasn’t recovered.”

“Destroyed?” I asked, my voice coming out in a harsh whisper.

“I’m just lucky I got what I did. And a second chance. I can actually go back if I return the Vessel. It would prove that I no longer lust for power.” Alex’s eyes held mine. He blinked, those soft eyelashes batting, and I would have scoured the world for him, right there in that moment.

“Yeah, see right there—I’d be out of the angelic realm in a heartbeat.” Nina licked her fingers. “So, you’ve got me. We’ll do it. Heck, I’ll even go a few rounds with your ex. I can take her.” Nina flexed a nonexistent bicep.

“No,” Alex said firmly.

“What’s she going to do? Kill me again?” Nina grinned at her own cleverness.

I rolled my eyes, but Alex’s look stayed hard. “I mean it.”

The same chill seemed to creep up my spine and I hugged my arms across my chest. “Is anyone else freezing?”

Nina and Alex stared at me and I yanked the afghan off the couch. “Oh. Right.”

Nina yawned, exposing sharp incisors. “Evil, schmevil. How bad can a fallen angel be? And what’d she do to you? Break your heart? Cheat on you with Cupid?”

“Just stay away from her, okay?”

I pushed away my dinner, suddenly feeling very full. I wanted to believe Alex. I wanted to believe that he had our best interests at heart. Ophelia could be bad news. Fallen angels always are. So was Ophelia really that bad—or did Alex really have something to hide?

I looked at him sideways, my appraisal hidden by a few strands of hair that fell over my forehead. I didn’t want to love him, didn’t want to feel that rush of adrenaline that washed over me whenever he walked through my door, whenever he walked back into my life. I wanted to believe all the best about him. In the Underworld I could see through magical veils. Horns, fangs, tails, bad intentions—everything that could be hidden with a charm or a spell was hung out in clear sight to me, but when it came to Alex Grace—and love—everything was as clear as mud.

“Do you think she’d really try and come after us?” I asked.

“Maybe. She might consider you an enemy, especially if you were standing in the way of her getting what she wanted. But believe me, you’d know if Ophelia was after you. She’s never been one to keep a secret.”

Nina snorted. “Does she travel with a marching band or something? Like, the fallen angel’s equivalent of the angelic trumpets?” She grinned, her fangs catching the light.

I narrowed my eyes at her. “You really have a way of comforting people.”

“Hello? Vampire, remember? Empathy has never really been our strong point.”

The thought of Alex’s psycho-killer ex-girlfriend rattled me a little, but with the entire Underworld behind me, I wasn’t that concerned.

“I don’t think she’d be able to find us.” I jutted my chin toward Nina. “Nina doesn’t have a paper trail above ground and mine’s pretty limited. We’re pretty far off the grid.”

Nina held up a finger. “Except for my Facebook page.” She whipped out her iPhone and started mumbling to herself while she typed. “Am embarking on a Heaven and Earth scavenger hunt.”

“Way to keep under the radar,” I said.

Alex bit his lip, considering whether or not to share his information. Finally he sighed and said, “Ophelia—and fallen angels in general—can read minds. They don’t really need to go looking for anyone—at least not the conventional way.”

Heat surged from my toes to the frazzled red hair follicles on my head. I thought of all the nights I had lain awake, thinking of Alex’s firm chest, the way he tasted, those soft, full lips pressed up against mine. “All the time?” I asked meekly.

Alex grinned, breaking the somberness in the room. “If we so choose.”

I promptly tried to erase all further thoughts of Alex in anything other than wholesome activities—including the velvety sweet tone of his voice as he murmured in my ear. It wasn’t working, so I urged my inner voice into a loud rendition of the Gilligan’s Island theme song. And then I imagined Alex’s smooth chest glistened up with coconut butter as he reclined on the beach.

“Damn,” I muttered.

Less than thirty minutes later, two sets of chopsticks poked out of a host of empty takeout boxes and a few fat grains of fried rice and packets of soy sauce littered the table. I eyed the backpack Alex had left untouched on the dining-room table and pointed to it.

“So, what’s in there?”

I really hoped it wasn’t a scrapbook of Alex’s past relationship with Ophelia. I knew it was childish, but I earnestly prayed that in the time since they had been apart, Ophelia had sprouted a tail, horns, a unibrow, or a beer belly—anything that might render her patently undatable—as though Alex’s description of her imminent evil wasn’t enough.

Alex unzipped the pack and slid out a stack of leather-bound books. Nina wrinkled her nose, and I coughed, covering my nose over the dusty smell of old paper. “What are those?”

“Various accounts of the history of the Vessel.”

I picked up one of the books, squinting at the worn gold writing on the spine. “There are books about it? I thought it was supposed to be hush-hush.”

“Well, you can’t exactly get them on Amazon.”

“The Vessel of Souls and the Origin of Evil,” Nina read. “Ooh, I’ll take this one.”

I poked through the stack. “Looks like people have been searching for this thing for years.”

“Eons,” Alex said without looking up. “Searching for it, documenting the things they know about it, even the things they just think they know.”

I slid a thin volume out from Alex’s backpack and opened it, leafing through the handwritten pages. “This one looks more like a journal,” I said.

Alex looked over my shoulder. “That’s the journal of the last guy who was seeking the Vessel.”

“What happened to him?”

Alex shrugged. “Don’t know. I didn’t get a lot of back-story with the books.”

Nina kicked her feet up on the table and crossed her ankles. “Hmm. I’m guessing that means you didn’t pick these up at our local Barnes and Noble?”

I watched Alex’s Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed. “No. I sort of took them. From Ophelia.”

I felt myself gape. “You ‘sort of’ took them?”

“Okay, I completely took them. And pretty soon she’ll come looking for them.” Alex poked the journal I held in my hand. “Especially that one.”

I flipped the journal to the first page and froze, my eyes set on the name inscribed. “Lucas Szabo,” I murmured.

“Yeah, that’s the guy. He’s some mortal guy who obviously has a serious desire for some power. There’s no other reason to seek out the Vessel. Apparently, he got pretty close. It should help us. The guy was really detailed. He listed who guarded the Vessel, included drawings, pictures—where he last tracked it. Everything.”

My heart started to beat in the rapid thud-thud-thud of a panic attack. My palms started to sweat and the inscription on the yellowed page swirled as tears started to pool.

“Are you okay, Sophie?”

“Sophie?” I felt Alex’s hand on my shoulder, but his voice sounded far away.

“Lucas Szabo,” I murmured again.

“Yeah, he was the hunter who was looking for the Vessel.”

I shook my head and with leaden hands, pulled the book toward me. I tried to form saliva to lick my parched lips, but I couldn’t. All I could do was choke out the name “Lucas Szabo.”

“Sophie, what’s wrong? You’re scaring me.” Nina was standing up, rushing toward me, her coal-black eyes the size of saucers. I heard her voice, but it was a million miles away—distant—like the feeling of Alex’s hand on my shoulder.

“Lucas Szabo is my father,” I answered.