The Bonding Ritual (Girls Wearing Black: Book Four) (63 page)

The crowd was buzzing with discontent now, but nobody knew what to do. What was Jill Wentworth saying to them?

“You people have convinced yourselves that Renata or some other immortal is responsible for the recent chaos in the clan,” Jill said. “You’re wrong. Renata Sullivan hasn’t returned to lead the clan in some sort of glorious revolt. Renata Sullivan is dead.”

Gasps and confusion met this remark.
It’s not true. Why is she saying this? If Renata is dead, then who is leading the clan?

Jill continued to speak, and with the help of the microphone, her words carried over the noise.

“Renata is dead just like Daciana is dead, and Sergio is dead, and Ryan helped kill them!”

Now they were really riled up, and Mary sensed her chance. She had figured out something important. She had to let the others know. She had to challenge this nonsense that Jill was spewing.

“If Renata is dead, then why is one of her servants a pallbearer?” Mary shouted.

Her question silenced the crowd. From across the cathedral, Jill looked right at Mary.

“You mean Frankie?” she said.

Mary felt the whole cathedral looking at her, waiting for her to answer.

“The tall one,” she yelled. “He was a servant at Renata’s mansion! I’ve seen him before!”

Others in the crowd voiced their assent.
Yes, I remember him. I saw him there too!

Jill leaned forward and spoke in the microphone.

“Frankie, could you stand up so they can see you?”

The huge pallbearer stood from his seat.

“It’s true that Frankie was a servant at Renata’s mansion once,” Jill said. “But he’s not anymore. His mind has been set free. He’s been rescued and deprogrammed, just like all of Renata’s slaves, and all of Daciana’s. He is one of nearly a hundred innocent lives that Ryan helped save. I’m glad you pointed Frankie out, Mary. It’s good for all of you to look at someone like him. To see that he’s a human being, with just as much right to his own life as you have to yours. Look at Frankie. Think about all the slaves you’ve seen in the mansions of the vampires around town. Think of how many innocent people were stolen off the street and killed!”

The crowd was noisy no
w. People were wondering aloud if they should say something, or do something.
A travesty!
they said
. Blasphemous and wrong! Somebody get her off the altar!

“Ryan was a part of the Network, and it is because of Ryan that Daciana is dead!”

It was madness out in the crowd now, but Jill’s amplified voice was louder than all of them.

“I will not see him buried without his contribution recognized! I will not let the rest of you go on wondering and speculating if he was working for Renata or some other immortal. That couldn’t be further from the truth! It’s because of Ryan, and everything he stood for on the night he died, that we have a real chance to be free of the vampires who
have lorded over us for so long. It was humans, not immortals, who stole the clan’s money and set them against each other, and it was Ryan who made it possible! It was humans, not immortals, who killed Daciana, Renata, Sergio, and Bernadette. Humans emptied the Farm earlier this week. Humans have the clan confused and on the run. Humans, like Ryan, who have shown us we do not have to live in fear of the vampires because, if we wanted to, if
enough of us
wanted to, we could throw off the shackles the clan has put on us! But it’s up to you. The people in this cathedral today—have a look around at the people who are here with you! You are the ones who put the clan in power! You are the ones who allowed a group of bloodsuckers to infiltrate our institutions. You gave them the right to take our money, to tell us what to do, to spy on us, to deny us the very freedom and dignity that is our birthright! Why did you do it? Ask yourselves—why did you do it?”

The crowd was silent now. Listening to Jill, Mary couldn’t help but wonder:
Why did we do it?

“Daciana needed all of you in order for her scheme to work,” Jill said. “She needed powerful people who were willing to look the other way, and you were happy to do so because she made you rich. You knew the clan was doing hideous, horrible things to people like Frankie, but you said nothing because Daciana bought your silence.

“Well, now she has no more money to pay you with. Now that the gravy train has stopped, I ask you, what are you going to do? Will you honor Ryan Jenson, who was brave enough to stand up for what’s right, or will you latch onto the next bloodsucker who comes to town?”

Jill looked away from the audience, turning her gaze to the coffin in front of the altar.

“Ryan, you were a good person who consistently chose to do the right thing, even when it wasn’t easy for you. Even when it put you in danger.”

Jill’s face was soaked in tears. Confused by her own feelings, Mary was crying as well.

“I’ll always be grateful for you Ryan,” Jill said, “and I’ll always love you.”

With those words, Jill stepped down from the lectern. As she neared the coffin, she raised two fingers on her right hand, kissed them, and then touched that kiss to the coffin.

Watching Jill make the gesture, Mary saw that she had a green ring made of glass on her finger, and vaguely remembered Jill wearing that same ring during freshman year.

The other pallbearers got up and gathered around Ryan’s coffin. Together, they picked it up and began walking to the back of the cathedral.

As they walked past, Mary got a good look at the girl walking closest to Jill, and saw the face behind the veil.

“Nicky Bloom,” she whispered.

Her grandmother, standing next to her, leaned in and said, “What’s that, Dearie?”

“Just…one of the pallbearers,” Mary said. “She was part of the contest. She’s one of the girls wearing black.”

Her grandmother smiled. “Honey, all the girls are wearing black today.”

Nicky crouched low, using a rock to provide cover, and peered at the mansion through her binoculars.

“Right back where you started,” he said to her. “You hid behind the same rock the last time you staked out this mansion.”

He appeared in moments like these, when it was quiet, and they had time to talk.

“I may be hiding behind the same rock, but I’m hardly where I started,” she said.

“Yes, I suppose that’s true. Last time you came here, you were looking for Frankie. What is it you’re doing this time?”

Nicky pulled her eyes away from the binoculars and turned to smile at him. He was on the ground next to her, sitting with his back against a tree trunk.

“Looking for Frankie,” she said.

“Like I said, right back where you started.”

“It’s different now. You know that. Yes, technically I’m sitting out here looking for Frankie.”

She placed her eyes back on the binoculars and aimed them at the window on the side of the mansion, waiting for her partner to appear.

“But last time I sat out here with a pair of binoculars—how long ago was that?”

“Seven years,” Sergio said. “You were eleven years old.”

“Wow,” Nicky said, shaking her head. “What on earth was I doing out here when I was eleven years old?”

“Looking for Frankie.”

“Searching for Frankie,” Nicky corrected. “There’s a difference. Last time I had a lot of ground to cover to find him. This time, I just need to keep my binoculars aimed at the window, and I’ll see him eventually. I was searching then. I’m looking now.”

“Fair enough,” said Sergio. “So if you’re only looking for Frankie, then what are you searching for?”

Nicky held her gaze on the window.

“Who says I’m searching for anything?”

“You’re always searching for something, Nicky Bloom.”

Nicky Bloom. It wasn’t her name anymore. The mission was over. Her friends knew her real name now. Her family name. Celeste Nicole Allen.

But to Sergio, or rather, this ghost of Sergio that lived on in her mind, she would always be Nicky Bloom.

“Yes, I suppose I am,” she said.

“So what is it? What are you searching for?”

“I don’t know,” she said.

Frankie appeared in the window. He looked out at Nicky and held up one finger.

“We’re all-clear,” she said. “Time for me to go.”

She pulled down her binoculars and glanced over at Sergio.

“See you later, Nicky,” he said, then he faded away, disappearing into the darkness.

*****

The doorbell rang. Jill barely heard it.

She had been staring at the screen for hours. There was a pattern here; she knew it. It just hadn’t revealed itself to her yet.

“Honey! The package is here!” Zack called out from downstairs.

She heard the words, but they took a few seconds to filter into her brain. She was looking at blocks of encrypted data on a hard drive. She didn’t have the encryption key to open them, but had three other hard drives on her desk where the data was stored in the exact same pattern. It was only a matter of time before she figured it out.

“Can you get it for me?” she called back at Zack. “I’m kind of in the middle of something!”

The packages were arriving daily now. Nicky and Frankie were on a roll.

Jill and Zack lived in a small house outside Montreal. They arrived a few days after Ryan’s funeral. The idea was that they would stay in Canada for a week and then board a plane for Europe.

But after Frankie killed Nora Jamison, and they found messages from Fu Xi on Nora’s computer, messages that ensnared two other immortals, Jill decided she needed to stay close. In Canada, she could receive next-day shipments from Nicky. She was getting a shipment almost every day.

The Network was on the march back in the States. Many of the vampires down there, convinced that a powerful new enemy of the clan was coming after them, had already fled. Those that stayed behind became targets for the increasingly effective team of hunters led by Frankie and Nicky.

With every mansion Frankie and Nicky cleared, more treasures flowed out of the clan’s possession and back into the world. And more secrets, stowed away on computers the vampires left behind, got shipped up to Canada, where Jill and another agent worked to decode them.

The other agent was named Carolyn Wentworth. She lived in the house next door, where she happily spent her days working on the steady stream of projects Jill brought to her.

Carolyn lived alone. Jill’s father, who always kept a stash of fake passports and emergency cash, chose to disappear on his own, rather than with the Network’s help.

Jill thought it was probably for the best that Walter didn’t come. If anyone needed a fresh start, it was Walter Wentworth. Hopefully in his new life, wherever it was, he was looking for honest work, rather than an opportunity to ride someone else’s coattails.

Zack opened the bedroom door and poked his head inside.

“I was wrong,” he said. “It wasn’t a package. You’ve got company downstairs.”

“Oh, okay. Thanks, Hon. I’ll be right down.”

Jill closed up what she was working on and went downstairs, where she found three guests in her living room. She rushed to hug the only one she recognized.

“Hello, Jill,” Eve said. “I’m so glad to see you. Your house is cute!”

“It’s a mess!” Jill said. “If I’d known you were coming, with guests…”

Jill looked at the other two guests, two young men she didn’t recognize.
Teenage boys, neither of them older than fourteen.

“Are these…?” Jill gestured at the boys, wanting Eve to finish the question for her.

“Yes,” said Eve. She pointed at the taller of the two boys, a slim young man with chestnut-colored hair. “This is Eddie.”

Jill shook his hand.

“And this is Patrick,” Eve said, introducing Jill to the other boy, who had sandy blonde locks and wide, curious eyes.

“That was fast,” Jill said, trying to think about when she’d asked Eve to find people for her. It was only a few weeks ago.

“I’ve known these young men for years,” Eve said. “And when I read your email, I knew they were our guys. They’re ready.”

Looking at them, at how young they were, Jill wasn’t so sure she agreed with Eve’s assessment. But then again, she wasn’t ready either when she started.

Jill led the group to the dining room, where they gathered around the table. Zack fetched coffee and water for everyone, and Jill placed an envelope at the center of the table.

“How much do you guys know?” she said. “Should I start at the beginning?”

“They know their history,” said Eve. “Start with the mission.”

Jill touched her fingers to the envelope on the table, and for a moment she traveled back in time. She thought about when she was no older than these boys, and she stood outside the Washington Monument, waiting for a mystery car to come pick her up.

She met Gia Rossi that day, and learned what she would be doing for the Network.