Jenna Black - Dark Descendant

His eyes bored into me as I sat there in horrified silence, unable to force a single word from my mouth.

Konstantin reached over and patted my shoulder. I was too frozen to react. Then the lines of his face softened and he gave me what looked like a sad smile. Another veneer, no more convincing than the other.

“It doesn’t have to be like this,” he said softly. “You can join with us and work in a spirit of cooperation. No one need get hurt. You are Liberi Deorum , Nikki Glass, and you will live forever. The choice is yours whether that life will be one of pleasure and privilege, or pain and strife.”

I still couldn’t speak, didn’t know what I could say in the face of such blatant evil. Words of defiance might get Steph hurt, but it was beyond me to in any way suggest I was in agreement with him. About anything he had said.

I remained silent as Konstantin rose to his feet, headed toward the front door, and beckoned Alexis to follow.

I sat in thehotel lobby for a good half hour after Konstantin and Alexis left, trying to pull myself together and think clearly. I didn’t have much luck.

What was I going to do now? I couldn’t let Alexis hurt Steph. And yet I couldn’t live with myself if I tracked down the people on Konstantin’s list and thereby got them killed.

Of course, it was still possible Anderson had been lying. Maybe the people on Konstantin’s list were all bad guys, fugitives from justice, just as he had described them. I didn’t actually believe it—the threats he’d made against Steph told me all I needed to know about the strength of his moral fiber—but I clung to the unlikely possibility.

I finally managed to get myself moving again. I collected my spy camera from under the chair, then left the Sofitel, keeping a careful eye out for any sign that I was being followed. I was pretty sure Konstantin was convinced he had me over a barrel and therefore wouldn’t waste his time having me tailed, but you never can be too sure.

I took a very long and roundabout route back to my hotel, then retreated to my room to do a little research. I couldn’t see complying with Konstantin’s demands—surely I would find some other way out of this mess without endangering Steph—but I figured it couldn’t hurt to see what I could dig up on the people he was asking me to find.

He’d given me very little to go on. Just names, and dates and places of birth. Under normal circumstances, I would have refused to try to locate someone with so little information. I’m good, but I’m not that good. But these were not normal circumstances. And besides, everyone seemed to think I had some kind of supernatural hunting ability. I’d seen the evidence that I’d become a ridiculously good shot, but so far I had no idea how that could translate into finding someone. Maybe once I tried, I’d unlock a special ability I didn’t know I had.

I started with the first name on the list: Joseph Swift. Born March 15, 1955 in Madison, WI. At least that gave me a starting place for my search, although it was obvious Joseph Swift wasn’t in Madison anymore, or the Olympians could have found him easily without my help.

I didn’t need any fancy new supernatural abilities to find out some basic information about Swift, not when the local papers had a gruesome story to revel in.

Swift had lived a fairly ordinary life as a child. His parents were working class, but steadily employed. He was a straight A student, and a star of his high school football team. Colleges were recruiting him aggressively, and his future looked almost unbearably bright. Until the spring of his senior year in high school, that is.

Just a few days shy of his eighteenth birthday, there was what was described as a failed burglary attempt at Joseph Swift’s home. Several masked men broke into the house around midnight. According to Joseph, everyone in the household had gone to bed, and all the lights in the house were out. He, however, had been having trouble sleeping and had gone downstairs for a glass of water. He was in the kitchen drinking his water when he heard his father’s startled cry, and then his mother’s scream.

Joseph sprinted to his parents’ aid, having no idea what was happening. When he was halfway up the stairs, his eight-year-old sister came running out of her bedroom, pursued by one of the masked intruders. The girl was stabbed to death before Joseph’s eyes. When he saw two more masked men with bloody knives emerging from his parents’ room, Joseph ran for his life. He managed to escape, but his entire family had been slaughtered.

I read several newspaper accounts of the murders. Everyone seemed to think that the masked men were burglars, and that Joseph’s father had surprised them at their work. But the theory made little sense. The “burglars” sounded like a sophisticated crew, but the Swifts hardly seemed wealthy enough to attract them. Plus, what self-respecting professional burglars would break into a house when they knew there were four people inside? Far less risky to wait until the house was empty.

It was hard to see the murders as anything other than a premeditated slaughter of a family of Descendants perpetrated by the Olympians.

Joseph seemed to drop off the face of the Earth after the murders, which I supposed was why the Olympians wanted my help to find him. I tried locating other members of his extended family, thinking maybe he’d gone to live with them, but not only did I not find any sign of him, I found even more evidence that pointed to a purge. I couldn’t find evidence of a single surviving family member on his father’s side. There was one maternal aunt who survived until 1963, when she died of natural causes, and a couple of distant cousins—also on his mother’s side—who seemed to have lived—or still be living—long and ordinary lives. But the more I delved into his father’s family, the more unexplained deaths I discovered. Car accidents. House fires. Mysterious disappearances. Everything led me to the conclusion that Joseph’s divine blood had come through his father’s side, and that the Olympians had managed to eliminate them all one by one.

I never got around to doing any serious research on Swift’s current location, because I’d already learned everything I wanted to know. There was not a single doubt left in my mind: if I located Joseph Swift, he was a dead man. And if he had any children, they, too, would either die or be kidnapped and indoctrinated by the Olympians.

I couldn’t do it. Not even to save Steph. And as horrible as Konstantin’s threat had been, I knew my sister well enough to be certain she’d agree with my decision. I was just going to have to find some other way to protect her. Reluctant as I was to admit it, that meant I was going to need help. And there was only one person I could go to for said help.

Perhaps I was digging the hole deeper, both for myself and for Steph. Perhaps Anderson was just as cruel and ruthless as Konstantin. But there was only one way to find out.

It was almost five before I found the nerve to pick up the phone and call Anderson. I couldn’t help remembering all the hostility he and Blake and Jamaal had shown me on the other night, and the idea of placing myself at their mercy made me want to hide under the bed. But honestly, I could see no other option, aside from giving up my entire life and making myself disappear, which still wouldn’t guarantee Steph’s safety. It was possible that by calling Anderson, I was handing myself over to the enemy. It was also possible that I’d already soured any potential we’d ever had of working together. But I had to try.

My heart raced and my palms sweated as I waited for Anderson to answer. Was this my gut trying to warn me away? Or was it just a very natural fear reaction, after all I’d gone through in the past forty-eight hours? I couldn’t tell.