Once Burned

let out a grunt and then pulled something long and whitish from the hole.

A bone.

“Right where you’re supposed to be,” Vlad muttered.

It did seem to be undeniable proof that Szilagyi couldn’t be the puppet master, but I came closer, holding out my hand.

“Let’s make sure.”

His brow arched, but he placed the bone in my right hand.

At once, echoes of the man’s agonizing last moments washed over me. He’d been burned to death, which I expected, but I didn’t see Vlad’s face through the flames. I saw the puppet master’s, his face haggard and gray- streaked hair much longer, but his features were unmistakable. Another jumble of images replaced those in rapid succession, showing a benign sin, long days spent farming the land, and small children playing by a mud-walled house. A name kept reverberating throughout the memories. Josef. This was all wrong.

When I clawed my way back to that fiery death again, I saw what I’d missed the first time in the jumble of pain and panic. The puppet master was wearing the ring I’d seen when he ordered my attack, only here, he was doing his own dirty work. The man buried here was named Josef, and he’d been burned to death by the same vampire who had recently tried to kill me.

Chapter 29

Once again, I found myself surrounded by vampires while trying to find a killer through the essence trail left from the man he’d murdered. But this time, I wasn’t being forced. Despite the late hour and being exhausted, I wanted to find this bastard now, not later. I would’ve started looking next to that grave except Vlad insisted that we return to his castle.

When I found the essence thread leading to Josef’s murderer, I followed it. The tapestry room with its large fireplace and exquisite wall coverings fell away, replaced by what looked like the inside of a cement box. With the all-gray colors of the room, for a second, I thought I’d stumbled upon a past memory. Then I saw the brown wooden door with thick black iron hinges. Color images, no haziness. That meant I was in the present. In the corner of the drab room, underneath a blanket-sized fur pelt, was the elusive puppet master, asleep.

Or, if my guess was correct, Josef’s murderer and the orchestrator of my kidnapping was Mihaly Szilagyi—the vampire Vlad thought he’d killed centuries ago.

“Got him,” I said out loud.

The vampire’s eyes snapped open, deep brown and piercing. Now that he was in color, I saw that the streaks in his hair were blond, not gray. The lines in his face also looked less pronounced, but maybe that was because he wasn’t scowling like the other times I’d seen him. His complexion was typical vampire pale, but his cheeks held a faint tinge of color. He must have fed recently. Marty had always looked flushed after a good meal.

“How unexpected,” the puppet master drawled with the same faint accent that Vlad had.

I glanced at the wooden door, but it was still closed. Prickles of fear danced up my spine. Vlad would have told me if he was a mind reader, I tried to reassure myself.

The vampire stretched as though waking up from a nap. “Much can change in three hundred years, my little psychic spy.”

Oh, crap! “We have a problem,” I said out loud. “He’s like you, Vlad. He can hear me in his head.”

Vlad muttered a curse, but I seized upon the only defense I had. At once, I began to mentally blast the most annoying eighties song I could think of. The vampire winced.

“Stop that.”

I turned up the volume in my head instead. Thank you, Bones! “Mihaly Szilagyi,” I said aloud, “you’ve been found out in more ways than one.”

I was guessing, but thanks to that song blasting away in my mind, the vampire didn’t know that. He threw aside his blanket, revealing that he wore black sweat pants and a thick pullover sweater. Then he got up, a mocking smile on his lips.

“Capturing you has surely backfired on me. At least now I know how Vlad located you so quickly. I worried that I had a traitor in my midst, but your abilities are truly extraordinary.”

“So I’ve been told,” I replied, still mentally jamming out.

Another wince. “Must you keep thinking of that wretched song? It was unbearable even when it was new.”

“How’d you do it?” I asked, not really expecting an answer. “Survive Vlad? He normally leaves behind nothing more than a pile of ash.”

That made Szilagyi smile again. “We share the same sire. If Vlad thinks about it long enough, he’ll figure it out.”

“Can you tell where he is?” Vlad asked in a hiss.

“No,” I replied with a sudden burst of insight. “He must’ve known I’d come looking for him. That’s why he’s in the same windowless concrete room that I saw when he ordered my attack. There’s nothing in it but a big fur blanket, and even his clothes are so average; you can’t tell anything from them.”

Szilagyi gave a concurring shrug. “I thought it possible that you could locate me through an object I’d touched. Why do you think I wanted to retrieve you so badly?”

“Or kill me,” I reminded him in a curt tone.

Another shrug. “Anyone who isn’t on my side is my enemy.” Then those deep brown eyes gleamed. “You could still be on my side, Frankie. With that clever defense you have against mind reading, Vlad need not even suspect. Lead him to the place of my choosing, and I will ensure that you never spend another day bouncing on trampolines for pennies.”

“Yeah, because I’ll be dead,” I scoffed. “Jackal was going to kill me as soon as my usefulness ran out. I’m supposed to believe you’ll be any dif-ferent?”

“Why would I kill someone with your priceless abilities if I can use you to my benefit?” he asked silkily.

“Ooh, a lifetime of captivity, sounds nice,” I mocked. “Thanks, but no.”

Szilagyi’s expression hardened into the merciless one I recognized from other people’s memories. “You believe that Vlad will let you go? Is he pretending to be kind? I’ve seen that act from him before, but only a fool falls for it.”

“I’m not getting anywhere with him,” I said to Vlad, ignoring Szilagyi’s taunt. “Do you have something you want me to relay before I go?”

“Yes.” Vlad’s voice was pleasant. “Tell him the next time I see him, I’ll rip off his head and make a new toilet out of it.”

“He hates you a lot,” I summarized to Szilagyi.

“Accept my offer while you still can,” the vampire replied.

I dropped the link, the confining gray room morphing into soaring ceilings with tapestries depicting various scenes of ancient life. Vlad’s fingers drummed on his armrest, the faint smell of smoke emanating from him. Behind him, Maximus was immobile, but Shrapnel paced in front of the fireplace.

“How is he even still alive?” he muttered.

I didn’t think the question was to me, but I answered it. “He was vague about the details. Said something about him and Vlad sharing a sire, and Vlad figuring it out if he thought about it long enough.”

Nothing but the crackling of flames for a few loaded moments. Then Vlad laughed, but it sounded far uglier than his usual half purr, half amused growl.

“He has Tenoch’s gift of degeneration.”

Comprehension dawned on everyone’s face except mine. “What’s that?”

Vlad’s fingers drummed against the armrest hard enough to produce tiny splinters.

“Tenoch, the vampire who turned me, had many powers. One of them was the ability to degenerate into a withered husk, mimicking the appearance of true death for a vampire. Szilagyi was also turned by Tenoch, but while