Page 44 of Bishop's Flight
“That’s a mercy at least,” Bernard muttered. “The vehicles on the property don’t look like they’ve been moved. Miguel is getting the guardhouse video now.”
“I don’t think we’re gonna learn anything useful from it,” Brigid said. “Is there any sign that Lucas was ever here?”
“No. Not a backpack or bag or anything like that. None of the rooms appear to be the room in the photograph.”
“I thought it would be a garage or a basement. It didn’t look like residential flooring.” Carwyn frowned. “Let me see one of the pictures again.”
Brigid reached in her jacket and handed one to Carwyn.
He looked at the photo and focused on the flooring since that was the only part of the room that was even vaguely unique. “It’s black, so it’s hard to tell, but it looks textured to me. Not like carpet. I thought it was industrial, but it looks… I don’t know, softer somehow.”
Brigid grabbed the picture. “You’re right. Do you think Lee can isolate it and look closer?”
“If he can’t, my people can.” Bernard was already pulling out a phone in a heavy case. “Cara, call Bernice.” His scowl didn’t change. “My daughter runs the tech division for Agnes and Rose.”
Carwyn glanced at Brigid, trying not to laugh. Bernard and Bernice? He had so many questions. Was it Bernard’s human daughter? Vampire daughter? He was guessing vampire daughter since the steady earth vampire felt at least a century old. Did she change her name? Did he give her a vampire name that sounded like his own?
His eyes must have been dancing because Brigid reached up and tweaked his ear behind Bernard’s back.
“Behave,” Brigid whispered. “Not the time or the place. I’m going upstairs to call Lee.”
“Bernard and Bernice though.”
“When Lucas is back, we can joke. Until then, we focus on the job.”
Fourteen
Lucas drummed his fingers on the wall, his eyes closed, and pictured the chess pieces in his mind. He was replaying Bobby Fischer’s famous win against International Master Donald Byrne in his head. He liked to replay that one when he was feeling like an underdog, imagining the pieces like real knights and pawns, bishops and chariots. That’s what the little castle pieces were supposed to be. Not castles—chariots, which made a lot more sense.
Fischer versus Byrne was a brilliant game and one of Lucas’s favorites. Bobby Fischer was an asshole—he’d watched enough YouTube to figure that out—but he was only thirteen when he decisively beat an international chess master.
Sometimes Lucas needed to remember that.
He’d gotten sick the night before and spent most of the night in the bathroom. He didn’t know what they were feeding him, but it wasn’t food like he got at home. It was mostly fast food with a little bit of truck stop sandwich thrown in.
Rose hated fast food. She wouldn’t even let Anna get chicken nuggets. She and Agnes fought about it sometimes because Agnes didn’t seem to think fast food was poison the way Rose did. One time Lucas convinced Miguel to sneak in some chicken nuggets for Anna because she saw them on the television, but luckily she thought they tasted nasty and asked for caviar after she’d tasted one.
Miguel was really relieved.
Lucas had no idea how his little sister was going to function in the normal world when she got to be older. Then again, if he could imagine a human destined to be a vampire, it would be Anna. She was ruthless in the same way Rose was. She wasn’t as erratic, but Lucas kind of wondered if Rose’s human life had been awful. He thought maybe so because sometimes Agnes let things slip and they weren’t good.
He missed them. He’d spent the past year daydreaming about graduating from high school and going off to college and how awesome his life was going to be when he wasn’t Rose and Agnes’s kid anymore.
Now? He wanted nothing more than to sprawl on the giant sofa in the movie room and watch some stupid kid movie with Anna and Rose cuddled up and Agnes and him indulging them and playing a chess game in their heads.
He missed his family.
Lucas blinked back the tears when he heard the doorknob rattle. They weren’t blindfolding him anymore, which meant that probably they were going to kill him. If he thought about it too much, he wanted to throw up.
So he thought about chess.
The redheaded vampire came into the room again. This time they looked down their nose at Lucas with an amused expression on their face. “Lucas.”
“Zasha.” He looked up. “Is that like another version of Sasha or a completely different name?”
“It’s another version of Sasha.”
“ButZnames are cooler thanSnames.”
