The ride to the airport in Richmond was silent. It was the kind of silence that made Charlotte's stomach twist up with anxiety. Thomas didn't want to talk to her now that Leroy was gone and doing so was no longer a way to antagonize him. She settled into her seat and looked out the window, trying not to think about Peter. Or Leroy. When they pulled up to the airport and got out of the car, Thomas handed her a passport with her name on it.
"Is it safe to travel under the name Charlotte Evans?"
Thomas rolled his eyes. "No one but us is even looking for Holly Barnes anymore—but we don't need anyone asking why a dead girl is flying. Charlotte Evans will be just fine."
He gave her a cellphone to pass the time—the only number programmed was his own. But there were some addictive games that helped take her mind off everything that had happened. She fiddled with the phone as they checked in, got through security, and waited in the first-class lounge until it was time to board.
Their short connecting flight to New York was smooth sailing. She sat next to Thomas in the terminal waiting for their next flight, googling Peter's name, knowing she'd regret it but would feel just as guilty if she didn't.
To her horror, she found dozens of old stories about what had happened. She read through them, the pit in her stomach growing. The police had assumed the signs of struggle at the crime scene had been between her and Peter and that Sebastian had been killed when he'd tried to intervene on her behalf. The lingering mystery was what had happened to her body—everyone was surprised that the young murderer who had done such a shoddy job of cleaning Sebastian's blood from the rock at the crime scene had been able to hide her body somewhere that no one could find it even in the four years since her disappearance.
Silent tears slipped from her eyes as she looked out the window at the city lights, forcing the thoughts away again. Instead she thought of Tameka—remembering that her friend had to be somewhere in the city around her. She looked out the window at the lights of the city scape, wondering what her friend was doing at that precise moment. Then with a jolt she realized how hard it must have been for Tameka when it had all happened. To hear that her cousin had murdered her best friend before getting killed himself could not have been easy. She would give anything to hear her friend's voice again—to tell her that she was alright, that the official story had gotten it wrong. But maybe that was worse—to learn that her best friend was responsible for all her family's pain because she ran instead of owning up to her actions.
Thomas grabbed her arm, squeezing it too tight, shaking her from her thoughts with a jump. "Come on, look alive." He followed her as they boarded the non-stop flight from New York to Paris. The plane took off without any incidents, but Thomas stood up as soon as the fasten seatbelts light was switched off.
"Where are you going?"
"I'll be back before we land. I've some things to attend to before we get to Paris. Why should I waste time babysitting you when the airline will do a splendid job of it for me?"
Charlotte settled into her seat, looking out the window at the city's lights down below, blurred by distance and her own tears. And she thought of Peter—dying abruptly and alone because she hadn't wanted to take responsibility for what she'd done.
The more she thought about it, the more guilt ate at her stomach. And the more it ate away at her, the more she hated Leroy for not telling her sooner. It was easier to hate him than to try to untangle how she felt about him now. She didn't know what she'd do if she saw him again, and she was too tired to think about it. She fell into an uneasy sleep, plagued by nightmares about Peter, Leroy, and her own guilt.
***
Just as the plane was rolling along the tarmac after landing, Thomas waltzed down the aisle into first class and sat back down in his seat next to Charlotte.
"Get all your business done?" she asked, flipping through the in-flight magazine, pretending like she wasn't curious about what'd been so urgent that he'd leave a plane mid-flight.
"Yes. Yes, I did," he said in a tone that all but forbade her from asking more questions, adjusting his collar as the plane came to a stop.
They disembarked and made their way through the Parisian countryside until they came to a large villa. The gates were as massive as they were beautiful—it would have been easier to break into Fort Knox, no matter how artistic those walls appeared. Charlotte was blown away by the sweeping grounds peppered with sculptures and fountains and mazes made out of tall shrubbery. There were several large manors tucked in between the trees on the massive property. It looked like something she'd expect to see in the documentary about royalty she'd seen in one of her European History classes.
Charlotte stepped out of the town car and moved to grab her things. "Don't worry about those—they'll be taken care of for you."
"How long has the European Alliance been here? Wouldn't one of the locals notice a whole compound of immortals by now?"
"The Alliance moved here around 1600 when Anne Boleyn accepted leadership of the Alliance. The Grims of this faction lacked vision and direction before she took control. Since she took power, we absorbed the African and Slavic factions to become the largest and most powerful Grim association in the world." He paused to brush some lint off the lapel of his suit. "And as for your other question—no, the humans have never bothered us here. Apparently, they're too stupid to notice."
Charlotte had a million questions to ask, but before she could decide which to ask first, Thomas took her into the main house. As soon as he walked through the massive mahogany front doors, an elderly footman welcomed them and handed Thomas a sweeping black cloak off a sculpted coat rack in the entry hall.
Thomas slipped the cloak around his neck, never stopping his determined pace across the marble floors. "While you're staying here, you will have your own quarters, but before I have a member of the house staff escort you, Anne Boleyn herself wishes to see you. Follow me."
She followed Thomas to the top floor, past several people in similar dark cloaks minding their own business who didn't so much as take a second glance at her. At the end of a long hallway on the top floor was a pair of double doors with elaborate carvings on the crown molding around it.
They went inside, to find a woman who seemed to be in her late twenties or early thirties standing at the other end of the room behind a dark wooden desk. She had plain features on a slender face with a narrow chin. Her long dark hair was slicked back and fell in a straight cascade down her back. The sleek business attire Charlotte could see in the gap of the woman's black cloak surprised her. Somehow, she had expected the former queen staring back at her, small mouth pursed in annoyance, to be wearing a seventeenth century ball gown or something.
She stretched her hand out to shake Charlotte's. "It's a pleasure to meet you. This is my brother George." She gestured to the man hovering behind her before taking a seat in the large chair behind her massive desk, indicating for her to be seated as well. Charlotte sat, noticing that Thomas elected to hover behind her as if to ensure she wouldn't bolt. "What is it you prefer to be called, dear? I hear you've gone by several different things."
"Charlotte is fine."
"Wonderful. Did Thomas explain to you why we brought you here?"
"He said my dad worked on the project for you before. Does that mean you're looking for Excalibur?"
She smiled a demure smile that made Charlotte uneasy. "Your father was working on that project for us, yes. When he died, we lost his latest research to locate the sword."
"Did you check with the university? Other than a few personal effects and student projects, I had all of his books and papers donated to the school library. If you're looking for your stuff, that's where it'd be."
Anne Boleyn narrowed her eyes at her, "I am afraid we already checked there."
Charlotte shrugged. "Then I'm afraid I'm not sure why you chose me for this project. Excalibur was my dad's thing, not mine. I know next to nothing about it. I'm not sure how it is you expect me to find it when he couldn't."
The other woman grimaced at her, trying hard to keep up a welcoming demeanor. "It is essential that we find that sword. We were hoping you could do some research using what he left behind. Perhaps there is a lead somewhere in there we missed. Who knew him better than his own daughter, after all?"
"I get that it'd be cool to find the old relic, but why go to so much trouble for something that might never have existed? The legend was that it would help Arthur in battle. You don't look much like a war monger to me."
"I can see that Leroy's unfortunate attitude has rubbed off on you in your time together," Boleyn said, tapping her perfectly manicured nails on her desk. "If you must know, the sword is steeped in Grim lore. We would do just about anything to get it back."
"Why? What does it do?"
"It is the single thing on this planet with the ability to kill a Grim."
"Why would you even want to unleash a power like that?" She felt her chest constrict and asked, "Does this have something to do with Leroy?"
"That idiotic boy? No. Leroy Whitten is nothing but a nuisance."
"Then why would you want the power to kill a Grim?"
"There is an ancient prophesy from the early days of my kind that speaks of the destruction of us all. If we have it in our control, we can make sure that it cannot be used against us."
Charlotte had an unsettled, prickling feeling running along her skin at this explanation. No one would put so much effort into seeking an enormous power with the intent of leaving it dormant. "Seems like you should leave the sword in whatever hole it's rotting in. Why risk getting killed in all this?"
"I have no intention of dying."
"People rarely do." Anne Boleyn gave her a look that made her think twice about giving her any more attitude. "This all seems pretty vague. How do you know it's even about Excalibur?"
"Legend says Merlin himself created the Grims in order to protect Arthur but left him a failsafe if they ever turned on him—the ability to awaken the destructive power inside Excalibur."
Her heart started to pound faster. "Well, I'm really sorry, Ms. Boleyn, but I don't know anything about the research my dad did—I was young when he died, and it never interested me. I'm happy to look for you, but I can't promise I'll find anything."
She leaned forward on her desk. "I would advise you to think about it carefully. Concentrate on your childhood and try to remember anything that could be of use to us, any hints he might have left behind. We've set up a workstation in your suite with all of your father's research we possess."
"I'm willing to try, but I should warn you that the day he died, my dad told me he was giving up looking for it. And he was far more dedicated to the whole thing than I would be."
"If you help us find the sword, we would make it well worth your time."
"And how do you propose to compensate me? I'm not in need of money desperately enough to allow the potential genocide of an entire species."
"How would feel about being able to return home to your old life as Holly Barnes?"
***
After she'd been dismissed from Anne Boleyn's office, Thomas had stayed to discuss something with his boss, casting her out to navigate the villa on her own instead of having someone escort her as promised. She walked up and down the hallways on each floor in hopes of finding someone who might be able to help her. It was ten minutes before she ran into a beautiful blonde woman on the sixth floor down. "Excuse me, could you help me?"
The Grim had her cloak pulled back behind her shoulders so that it showed off her outfit underneath. However, it ended up looking like more of a cape hanging off the back of her light blue sundress that brought out her eyes and showed off her slender, pale shoulders. "That would depend on what you need help with," she replied, her voice tinged with a French accent.
"Um, well, I'm new here and I'm trying to find my room. My uh, guide ditched me."
Her eyebrows shot up. "A new Grim? How unusual."
"No, no. I'm not a Grim. They brought me in to help on a project. I'm just more of a guest."
"Ah. What is your name, then, guest?"
"Charlotte."
"Nice to meet you, Charlotte. My name is Vivienne. The easiest way to summon a member of the staff is to find one of the bell pulls. All the common rooms have them. Follow me."
Charlotte did, trailing along behind the beautiful woman down several flights of stairs until they went through a pair of double doors into the massive sitting room. Vivienne grabbed a long tassel tucked beside the fireplace and gave it a good tug. "Someone will be along soon," she said as she sat gingerly on one of the elegant couches, gesturing for Charlotte to join her.
Charlotte settled onto the seat across from her. "When did you die? Or is that a rude question around here?"
"I do not mind. It was a long time ago."
"My friend told me that to become a Grim you have to die a traumatic death."
"Your friend is correct."
"Then how'd you die, if you don't mind my asking?"
"I was beheaded. It was all the rage in my country during the Reign of Terror. I was just one of many, apparently."
Charlotte felt her eyebrows shoot up. "I'm...sure that was...traumatic, but...how...?"
"How do I still have a head?" Charlotte nodded. "It just grew back."
"I was wondering the same thing about Ms. Boleyn, but I didn't want to ask. She seems very..."
"Intimidating?"
"Yes! She has an intense presence. It's unnerving."
Charlotte fiddled with the end of her shirt, yearning to ask more questions but not wanting to annoy the woman.
Her new acquaintance laughed a beautiful, twinkling laugh. "Go ahead—I'm sure you have more questions. Ask me anything you want. I do not mind. In fact, I enjoy the company. It gets lonely around here."
"My friend had kids after he became a Grim. Is that common? What happens to Grim children? Wouldn't they become Grims too?"
Vivienne smiled as if Charlotte had just told her an inside joke. "This friend of yours is Leroy Whitten, then, is it not?"
"That's right. How did you know that?"
"Leroy is the only Grim in several hundred years that's had children after they died. We do not have children in our time as Grim Reapers, though it is possible, because they are a danger. They never become Grims themselves—no one knows why. Not only will we outlive them, but they could expose us. It is one of the rules of being part of our society."
"Then why did Leroy...?"
"He does not want to be part of our society. He never joined a faction, choosing instead to live among the humans. It is an unusual choice—one that is disgraceful. But then, he's an unusual Grim. Rarely does he do as he's told. Though he can be such a sweet man, don't you think?"
"You know him?"
"Just the once," she said, winking and the implication made Charlotte's stomach turn in jealousy she hadn't realized she was harboring. "He was brought here once after the Great War. It did not go well, and he did not stay long. He declined Anne Boleyn's offer of membership; rather rudely if I remember correctly. She has not been fond of him ever since."
"Just because he declined to join their club?"
"Well, it is a little more than that. All Grims are noble creatures descended from the high-born Knights of the Round Table. Anne Boleyn and others like her feel that we have a responsibility to live up to that noble blood. Leroy..." she sighed, "Leroy, on the other hand, does not. They feel he has not done anything of note in his hundred years of existence. Anne Boleyn and those who share her point of view think he is a disgrace to what it means to be a Grim."
"Well, what about you? Do you agree with that?"
"There was a time when I might have agreed. But my time as a Grim has made it harder to feel superior to anyone. I cannot blame him for the path he chose. The life they bully us into is boring and lonely. Not everyone can grow accustomed to it. If I were a braver woman I might have left by now."
"Why do you say it's boring?"
"We must spend our long lives improving ourselves despite the fact that we never leave these walls except to collect souls. Learning new languages, instruments, and etcetera. The problem, of course, is that after two hundred years you end up with vast amounts of knowledge with no use. Except, of course, to help in the search for the one thing that can remove us from this earth."
"Excalibur."
She nodded. "Our lives may be long, but no one is meant to have that kind of power. I pray to God, if one exists, that Anne Boleyn does not find it."
A butler entered the sitting room. Charlotte stood from her place on the couch. "Thank you for your help, Vivienne"
"Of course. I'm in the sunset suite in the Hemlock Tower if you have any more questions—or if you just need some company."
Charlotte promised to go see her and hurried after the butler who led her back up several flights of stairs to the huge suite she'd been given. She looked around the room gilded with ornate gold decorative pieces on the walls. The chandelier that hung from the ceiling was made of gold with innumerable tiny crystals that sparkled in the light flowing in through the windows.
She looked over and found her suitcase sitting on the huge four poster bed on top of an expensive looking blue comforter. She opened the bag, noticing that things were out of place. The book of her father's Arthurian Legends was now on top of the jacket in her backpack instead of under as she'd left it. Someone had gone through her things before bringing them to her room. They were being more than a little dishonest in their search for her father's journal.
Charlotte took a deep breath, knowing now that her suspicions about Anne Boleyn's intentions with Excalibur had been correct. She didn't believe for a second that she intended to keep the peace with it. There was no way she was going to help deliver the ability to murder unsuspecting Grims to someone who already had the might of the largest Grim faction at her disposal.
***
The next morning Charlotte was woken up by a knock on the door to her suite. She shrugged on the fluffy white robe from the bathroom and padded across the hardwood floor in her slipper socks. When she opened the door, she found a silver room service tray sitting outside her room. She pulled the cart over to the research desk they'd set up for her by the window of her suite, deciding that it was time to start looking through the materials they'd given her.
If what Vivienne said was true and all Grims of the European Alliance were also all looking for the sword, she decided that the best thing to do was to find out what information they already had. She needed to know how close they were to finding the sword on their own. She pulled out the gilded chair and sat down at the ornate desk, grabbing the stack of papers closest to her. The paper on top was an essay her dad had published when he was still in grad school. Rifling through the pile, she found all of his early essays from USC and UCI. She picked up a raspberry pastry off the room service tray, eating it while she started to read the papers with interest for the first time.
After a few hours and her fill of breakfast and coffee, she finished reading and annotating the stack of her father's published essays. He had analyzed nearly the Arthurian legends in incredible detail and invoked anthropological studies to argue the existence of the sword. He referenced the failed digs of Cadbury Castle, and echoed Professor Field's calls for an archeological dig in West Yorkshire. That sounded familiar, and she thought she remembered something in her dad's journal about that same site. But there was an uneasy feeling telling her not to bring the journal out—she was worried she might be under some kind of surveillance.
This seemed like as good a place to stop for now as any. She stood up to stretch and went to the lavish bathroom to change out of her pajamas. The finery of the room made her uncomfortable. There was gold leafing all over the moldings on the walls and gold-plated tiles around the tub. She could still feel the cold marble floors through her slipper socks and the room had the light smell of fine perfume though she couldn't for the life of her figure out where it was coming from. The wealth in her suite might have made her feel uneasy, but she couldn't complain about the perfect water pressure in the shower.
Cleaning up and getting dressed made her feel a hell of a lot more put together. She walked back out and put the room service tray in the hallway where she'd found it. Then she spent time combing the room, looking for video cameras and bugs Thomas or Anne Boleyn might have planted. After looking in every nook and cranny she could reach and still coming up empty, she flopped down onto the bed. The paranoid part of her told her it was naïve to think they weren't spying on her. But seeing as she hadn't been able to find any bugs, she didn't have anything to go on other than a hunch.
With a groan, she rolled onto her stomach. She didn't see how Anne Boleyn and her cronies would be able to help her get back to her old life as Holly Barnes even if she did decide to sell out and help them. She was presumed dead. If she appeared home, she was sure they'd get suspicious and reopen the case and find her guilty of killing Sebastian Sinclair—if she was lucky, she'd get tried for manslaughter. But the offer to return home—scot-free—and see Tameka, even for a few moments, was almost too good to pass up.
Then she remembered what that entailed—turning over the location of a weapon that could kill Leroy and his entire species. She went over to her backpack and pulled out one of the photos of the two of them from her graduation. She might have still been pissed that he'd lied to her, but that didn't mean she wanted him dead. Looking down at his face in the picture, she would even allow herself to admit that there was even a part of her that still yearned to see him again, to pull him close and plant a kiss on his lips and see where things went from there.
But before she could do any of that, she would have to bring herself to forgive him. And she wasn't ready to do that.
She double-checked that the journal was still in her back pocket, slipping the polaroid carefully between the pages, and let out a sigh of relief that it was there. If her father had been close to finding the location of the sword before he'd given up, she knew the clues would be in there. But the uncertain privacy of the suite made her uncomfortable about bringing the journal out, not wanting to tip her hand.
There was a soft knock at her door, and she jumped, making sure the journal couldn't be seen in the pocket of her jeans. "Come in."
Vivienne popped her head inside the door. "I hope you're not yet sick of me. I'm bored, and I wanted to come see you. It has been a long time since I had a friend here."
Charlotte smiled, glad for the distraction. "I'm not sick of you. I'd love the company and I could use the help." Vivienne smiled and came into the room. She hopped onto the edge of the bed. "What do you know about this prophesy they told me about?"
"Not much. Only that the last Grim is the key to unlocking the power of the Grim-Killer."
"And how will they know who that is?"
Vivienne tilted her head to look at her. "They already know who it is."
"Leroy? Why would it be Leroy? Just because he's the youngest doesn't mean he's the last."
"There hasn't been a single new Grim in the hundred years since he died. That has never happened. Before he turned, every couple of years there would be a new Grim. The prophesy has to be about him."
"How could anyone know a thing like that? Grims have been around for over fifteen hundred years; how could they know there hasn't been a gap like this?"
"I'll show you. Follow me."
Vivienne took Charlotte across the grounds to a separate building on the estate. They walked into the library and it seemed like something straight out of a fairy tale. It took up the entire building; the bottom floor had a hundred tables and chairs in the middle of the room. The high ceiling went all the way up to the tenth floor, revealing a roof made of domed glass and wood that let in beams of natural light, giving the library a religious feel to it as though it had been first intended as a chapel. Each of the ten floors could be seen from where Charlotte stood; the floors were interrupted by the ethereal center of the room, giving each level the appearance of a balcony on which there were leather armchairs for extra seating.
The room took Charlotte's breath away. She looked around in awe; the library looked more like a cathedral. A church for bibliophiles. She wondered if her father had ever seen it; she hoped so. Not only did there have to be millions upon millions of books in here—something that by itself he would have geeked out about—but it was one of the most beautiful sights she'd ever seen.
"It is beautiful," Vivienne said, drawing Charlotte from her thoughts. "I have spent countless hours in here in the last two hundred years and I still have not read even a fraction of the books."
"I can see why some Grims could be fulfilled by a life here. There are enough books to fill even an eternal lifetime," she said, walking into the center of the room and feeling as though she were in a dream.
"Yes. Beautiful as it is, it isn't what I wanted to show you." Charlotte looked at the beautiful surroundings and hesitated before following Vivienne out of the ethereal sitting room and up a few floors. They stopped at an alcove that housed a single leather-bound book. It was one of the largest books she had ever seen. It was open on a stand in the middle of an altar filled with candles and flowers.
"What is it?"
"It is a registry of every Grim in existence. It has their name, country of origin, and how they died."
"How do you even begin to keep track of something like that?" Charlotte asked, stepping forward to look at it.
"That would be my job," a young woman said from a desk across from the book and its altar. She didn't look much older than sixteen. She had close-cropped course hair even darker than her flawless ebony skin. Her dark eyes were full of light but one look into them told Charlotte she was ancient. She wore a flowing white pencil dress that showed through the gaps in her dark cloak. "Hello. My name is Agbenyaga, but you may call me Benya. None of you Westerners have ever been able to pronounce it correctly," she said with a chuckle that made Charlotte feel a little more at ease.
"How can you possibly keep track of every Grim that's come into existence since then? It must be difficult."
"Every time a new Grim is born, I get a vision—I see the new Grim and the circumstances of their death, and I write their information in this book."
Charlotte looked at Benya's desk. "Do you stay by the book at all times?"
She laughed. "Of course not. But my status has some weight around here and I find it comforting to be near my life's work. I haven't added anything to it in a hundred years. With every year that passes, the less and less I believe that I will ever write in it again. Feel free to look through it."
"Thank you." The book was open to a page with dates starting in the mid-1400s. Charlotte started gently turning the pages and only saw a couple of names she recognized like Anne Boleyn and Alexander Hamilton. The majority of names she did not recognize, but the entries still fascinated her. She turned to the last page with writing on it. Halfway down the page, the last entry read:
Leroy Whitten. American. 1912. Drowned.
She ran her finger along the beautiful cursive writing. Drowned. Leroy hadn't been forthcoming about his death, but she had assumed that he'd died in a duel, or a bar fight, or maybe even been beaten with a baseball bat in a karmic turn of events. Drowning seemed so ordinary for a man that was so extraordinarily dysfunctional.
She felt a hand on her shoulder. "I thought you might be interested to see that," Vivienne said, smiling.
"He never told me how he died."
"He has only had a hundred years. It sometimes takes longer than that for us to want to talk about it. It took me a hundred and fifty."
"You'd think it wouldn't take him that long to get over it; the bastard deserved to die. The only tragedy is that he didn't stay dead."
Charlotte turned around to see Thomas leaned up against one of the bookshelves. "Look, I can tell that you've got some kind of beef with him. Believe me, I know better than anyone that the guy can be hard to get along with sometimes. But what could he do to make you hate him that much?"
"He was my best friend in the world, and he stabbed me in the back."
"I'd like the honest truth, not some melodramatic—"
Thomas tilted his head to the side as if challenging her. "He married the love of my life and then killed her. He deserves every misery in this world. I, for one, cannot wait until we find that sword. At last I'll get some peace when I get to slit his throat open to unleash Excalibur and watch him finally die."