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  Art. Dimitri was on a first-name basis with one of the most badass guardians around. Of course, Dimitri was pretty badass himself, so I shouldn't have been surprised.

  Silence fell in the car. I bit my lip, suddenly wondering if I'd be able to meet Arthur Schoenberg's standards. My grades were good, but things like running away and getting into fights at school might cast a shadow on how serious I was about my future career.

  "You'll be fine," Dimitri repeated. "The good in your record outweighs the bad."

  It was like he could read my mind sometimes. I smiled a little and dared to peek at him. It was a mistake. A long, lean body, obvious even while sitting. Bottomless dark eyes. Shoulder-length brown hair tied back at his neck. That hair felt like silk. I knew because I'd run my fingers through it when Victor Dashkov had ensnared us with the lust charm. With great restraint, I forced myself to start breathing again and look away.

  "Thanks, Coach," I teased, snuggling back into the seat.

  "I'm here to help," he replied. His voice was light and relaxed-rare for him. He was usually wound up tightly, ready for any attack. Probably he figured he was safe inside a Honda-or at least as safe as he could be around me. I wasn't the only one who had trouble ignoring the romantic tension between us.

  "You know what would really help?" I asked, not meeting his eyes.

  "Hmm?"

  "If you turned off this crap music and put on something that came out after the Berlin Wall went down."

  Dimitri laughed. "Your worst class is history, yet somehow, you know everything about Eastern Europe."

  "Hey, gotta have material for my jokes, Comrade."

  Still smiling, he turned the radio dial. To a country station.

  "Hey! This isn't what I had in mind," I exclaimed.

  I could tell he was on the verge of laughing again. "Pick. It's one or the other."

  I sighed. "Go back to the 1980’s stuff."

  He flipped the dial, and I crossed my arms over my chest as some vaguely European-sounding band sang about how video had killed the radio star. I wished someone would kill this radio.

  Suddenly, five hours didn't seem as short as I'd thought.

  Arthur and the family he protected lived in a small town along I-90, not far from Billings. The general Moroi opinion was split on places to live. Some argued that big cities were the best since they allowed vampires to be lost in the crowds; nocturnal activities didn't raise so much attention. Other Moroi, like this family, apparently, opted for less populated towns, believing that if there were fewer people to notice you, then you were less likely to be noticed.

  I'd convinced Dimitri to stop for food at a twenty-four-hour diner along the way, and between that and stopping to buy gas, it was around noon when we arrived. The house was built in a rambler style, all one level with gray-stained wood siding and big bay windows-tinted to block sunlight, of course. It looked new and expensive, and even out in the middle of nowhere, it was about what I'd expected for members of a royal family.

  I jumped down from the Pilot, my boots sinking through an inch of smooth snow and crunching on the gravel of the driveway. The day was still and silent, save for the occasional breath of wind. Dimitri and I walked up to the house, following a river rock sidewalk that cut through the front yard. I could see him sliding into his business mode, but his overall attitude was as cheery as mine. We'd both taken a kind of guilty satisfaction in the pleasant car ride.

  My foot slipped on the ice-covered sidewalk, and Dimitri instantly reached out to steady me. I had a weird moment of déjà vu, flashing back to the first night we'd met, back when he'd also saved me from a similar fall. Freezing temperatures or not, his hand felt warm on my arm, even through the layers of down in my parka coat.

  "You okay?" He released his hold, to my dismay.

  "Yeah," I said, casting accusing eyes at the icy sidewalk. "Haven't these people ever heard of salt?"

  I meant it jokingly, but Dimitri suddenly stopped walking. I instantly came to a halt too. His expression became tense and alert. He turned his head, eyes searching the broad, white plains surrounding us before settling back on the house. I wanted to ask questions, but something in his posture told me to stay silent. He studied the building for almost a full minute, looked down at the icy sidewalk, then glanced back at the driveway, covered in a sheet of snow broken only by our footprints.

  Cautiously, he approached the front door, and I followed. He stopped again, this time to study the door. It wasn't open, but it wasn't entirely shut either. It looked like it had been closed in haste, not sealing. Further examination showed scuffs along the door's edge, as though it had been forced at some point. The slightest nudge would open it. Dimitri lightly ran his fingers along where the door met its frame, his breath making small clouds in the air. When he touched the door's handle it jiggled a little, like it had been broken.

  Finally, he said quietly, "Rose, go wait in the car."

  "But wh-"

  "Go."

  One word-but one filled with power. In that single syllable I was reminded of the man I'd seen throw people around and stake a Strigoi. I backed up, walking on the snow-covered lawn rather than risk the sidewalk. Dimitri stood where he was, not moving until I'd slipped back into the car, closing the door as softly as possible. Then, with the gentlest of movements, he pushed on the barely held door and disappeared inside.

  Burning with curiosity, I counted to ten and then climbed out of the car.

  I knew better than to go in after him, but I had to know what was going on with this house. The neglected sidewalk and driveway indicated that no one had been home for a couple days, although it could also mean the Badicas simply never left the house. It was possible, I supposed, that they'd been the victims of an ordinary break-in by humans. It was also possible that something had scared them off-say, like Strigoi. I knew that possibility was what had made Dimitri's face turn so grim, but it seemed an unlikely scenario with Arthur Schoenberg on duty.

  Standing on the driveway, I glanced up at the sky. The light was bleak and watery, but it was there. Noon. The sun's highest point today. Strigoi couldn't be out in sunlight. I didn't need to fear them, only Dimitri's anger.

  I circled around the right side of the house, walking in much deeper snow-almost a foot of it. Nothing else weird about the house struck me. Icicles hung from the eaves, and the tinted windows revealed no secrets. My foot suddenly hit something, and I looked down. There, half-buried in the snow, was a silver stake. It had been driven into the ground. I picked it up and brushed off the snow, frowning. What was a stake doing out here? Silver stakes were valuable. They were a guardian's most deadly weapon, capable of killing a Strigoi with a single strike through the heart. When they were forged, four Moroi charmed them with magic from each of the four elements. I hadn't learned to use one yet, but gripping it in my hand, I suddenly felt safer as I continued my survey.

  A large patio door led from the back of the house to a wooden deck that probably would have been a lot of fun to hang out on in the summer. But the patio's glass had been broken, so much so that a person could easily get through the jagged hole. I crept up the deck steps, careful of the ice, knowing I was going to get in major trouble when Dimitri found out what I was doing. In spite of the cold, sweat poured down my neck.

  Daylight, daylight, I reminded myself. Nothing to worry about.

  I reached the patio and studied the dark glass. I couldn't tell what had broken it. Just inside, snow had blown in and made a small drift on pale blue carpet. I tugged on the door's handle, but it was locked. Not that that mattered with a hole that big. Careful of the sharp edges, I reached through the opening and unlocked the handle's latch from the inside. I removed my hand just as carefully and pulled open the sliding door. It hissed slightly along its tracks, a quiet sound that nonetheless seemed too loud in the eerie silence.

  I stepped through the doorway, standing in the patch of sunlight that had been cast inside by opening the door. My eyes adjusted from the sun t
o the dimness within. Wind swirled through the open patio, dancing with the curtains around me. I was in a living room. It had all the ordinary items one might expect. Couches. TV. A rocking chair.

  And a body.

  It was a woman. She lay on her back in front of the TV, her dark hair spilling on the floor around her. Her wide eyes stared upward blankly, her face pale-too pale even for a Moroi. For a moment I thought her long hair was covering her neck, too, until I realized that the darkness across her skin was blood-dried blood. Her throat had been ripped out.

  The horrible scene was so surreal that I didn't even realize what I was seeing at first. With her posture, the woman might very well have been sleeping. Then I took in the other body: a man on his side only a couple feet away, dark blood staining the carpet around him. Another body was slumped beside the couch: small, child-size. Across the room was another. And another. There were bodies everywhere, bodies and blood.

  The scale of the death around me suddenly registered, and my heart began pounding. No, no. It wasn't possible. It was day. Bad things couldn't happen in daylight. A scream started to rise in my throat, suddenly halted when a gloved hand came from behind me and closed over my mouth. I started to struggle; then I smelled Dimitri's aftershave.

  "Why," he asked, "don't you ever listen? You'd be dead if they were still here."

  I couldn't answer, both because of the hand and my own shock. I'd seen someone die once, but I'd never seen death of this magnitude. After almost a minute, Dimitri finally removed his hand, but he stayed close behind me. I didn't want to look anymore, but I seemed unable to drag my eyes away from the scene before me. Bodies everywhere. Bodies and blood.

  Finally, I turned toward him. "It's daytime," I whispered. "Bad things don't happen in the day." I heard the desperation in my voice, a little girl's plea that someone would say this was all a bad dream.

  "Bad things can happen anytime," he told me. "And this didn't happen during the day. This probably happened a couple of nights ago."

  I dared a peek back at the bodies and felt my stomach twist. Two days. Two days to be dead, to have your existence snuffed out-without anyone in the world even knowing you were gone. My eyes fell on a man's body near the room's entrance to a hallway. He was tall, too well-built to be a Moroi. Dimitri must have noticed where I looked.

  "Arthur Schoenberg," he said.

  I stared at Arthur's bloody throat. "He's dead," I said, as though it wasn't perfectly obvious. "How can he be dead? How could a Strigoi kill Arthur Schoenberg?" It didn't seem possible. You couldn't kill a legend.

  Dimitri didn't answer. Instead his hand moved down and closed around where my own hand held the stake. I flinched.

  "Where did you get this?" he asked. I loosened my grip and let him take the stake.

  "Outside. In the ground."

  He held up the stake, studying its surface as it shone in the sunlight. "It broke the ward."

  My mind, still stunned, took a moment to process what he'd said. Then I got it. Wards were magic rings cast by Moroi. Like the stakes, they were made using magic from all four of the elements. They required strong Moroi magic-users, often a couple for each element. The wards could block Strigoi because magic was charged with life, and the Strigoi had none. But wards faded quickly and took a lot of maintenance. Most Moroi didn't use them, but certain places kept them up. St. Vladimir's Academy was ringed with several.

  There had been a ward here, but it had been shattered when someone drove the stake through it. Their magic conflicted with each other; the stake had won.

  "Strigoi can't touch stakes," I told him. I realized I was using a lot of can't and don't statements. It wasn't easy having your core beliefs challenged. "And no Moroi or dhampir would do it."

  "A human might."

  I met his eyes. "Humans don't help Strigoi-" I stopped. There it was again. Don't. But I couldn't help it. The one thing we could count on in the fight against Strigoi was their limitations-sunlight, ward, stake magic, etc. We used their weaknesses against them. If they had others-humans-who would help them and weren't affected by those limitations …

  Dimitri's face was stern, still ready for anything, but the tiniest spark of sympathy flashed in his dark eyes as he watched me wage my mental battle.

  "This changes everything, doesn't it?" I asked.

  "Yeah," he said. "It does."

  CHAPTER 2

  Dimitri made one phone call, and a veritable SWAT team showed up.

  It took a couple of hours, though, and every minute spent waiting felt like a year. I finally couldn't take it anymore and returned to the car. Dimitri examined the house further and then came to sit with me. Neither of us said a word while we waited. A slide show of the grisly sights inside the house kept playing in my mind. I felt scared and alone and wished he would hold me or comfort me in some way.

  Immediately, I scolded myself for wanting that. I reminded myself for the thousandth time that he was my instructor and had no business holding me, no matter what the situation was. Besides, I wanted to be strong. I didn't need to go running to some guy every time things got tough.

  When the first group of guardians showed up, Dimitri opened the car door and glanced over at me. "You should see how this is done."

  I didn't want to see any more of that house, honestly, but I followed anyway. These guardians were strangers to me, but Dimitri knew them. He always seemed to know everybody. This group was surprised to find a novice on the scene, but none of them protested my presence.

  I walked behind them as they examined the house. None of them touched anything, but they knelt by the bodies and studied the bloodstains and broken windows. Apparently, the Strigoi had entered the house through more than just the front door and back patio.

  The guardians spoke in brusque tones, displaying none of the disgust and fear I felt. They were like machines. One of them, the only woman in the group, crouched beside Arthur Schoenberg. I was intrigued since female guardians were so rare. I'd heard Dimitri call her Tamara, and she looked about twenty-five. Her black hair just barely touched her shoulders, which was common for guardian women.

  Sadness flickered in her gray eyes as she studied the dead guardian's face. "Oh, Arthur," she sighed. Like Dimitri, she managed to convey a hundred things in just a couple words. "Never thought I'd see this day. He was my mentor." With another sigh, Tamara rose.

  Her face had become all businesslike once more, as though the guy who'd trained her wasn't lying there in front of her. I couldn't believe it. He was her mentor. How could she keep that kind of control? For half a heartbeat, I imagined seeing Dimitri dead on the floor instead. No. No way could I have stayed calm in her place. I would have gone on a rampage. I would have screamed and kicked things. I would have hit anyone who tried to tell me things would be okay.

  Fortunately, I didn't believe anyone could actually take down Dimitri. I'd seen him kill a Strigoi without breaking a sweat. He was invincible. A badass. A god.

  Of course, Arthur Schoenberg had been too.

  "How could they do that?" I blurted out. Six sets of eyes turned to me. I expected a chastising look from Dimitri for my outburst, but he merely appeared curious. "How could they kill him?"

  Tamara gave a small shrug, her face still composed. "The same way they kill everyone else. He's mortal, just like the rest of us."

  "Yeah, but he's … you know, Arthur Schoenberg."

  "You tell us, Rose," said Dimitri. "You've seen the house. Tell us how they did it."

  As they all watched me, I suddenly realized I might be undergoing a test after all today. I thought about what I'd observed and heard. I swallowed, trying to figure out how the impossible could be possible.

  "There were four points of entry, which means at least four Strigoi. There were seven Moroi…" The family who lived here had been entertaining some other people, making the massacre that much larger. Three of the victims had been children. "… and three guardians. Too many kills. Four Strigoi couldn't have taken down that many.
Six probably could if they went for the guardians first and caught them by surprise. The family would have been too panicked to fight back."

  "And how did they catch the guardians by surprise?" Dimitri prompted.

  I hesitated. Guardians, as a general rule, didn't get caught by surprise. "Because the wards were broken. In a household without wards, there'd probably be a guardian walking the yard at night. But they wouldn't have done that here."

  I waited for the next obvious question about how the wards had been broken. But Dimitri didn't ask it. There was no need. We all knew. We'd all seen the stake. Again, a chill ran down my spine. Humans working with Strigoi-a large group of Strigoi.

  Dimitri simply nodded as a sign of approval, and the group continued their survey. When we reached a bathroom, I started to avert my gaze. I'd already seen this room with Dimitri earlier and had no wish to repeat the experience. There was a dead man in there, and his dried blood stood out in stark contrast against the white tile. Also, since this room was more interior, it wasn't as cold as the area by the open patio. No preservation. The body didn't smell bad yet, exactly, but it didn't smell right, either.

  But as I started to turn away, I caught a glimpse of something dark red-more brown, really-on the mirror. I hadn't noticed it before because the rest of the scene had held all of my attention. There was writing on the mirror, done in blood.

  Poor, poor Badicas. So few left. One royal family nearly gone. Others to follow.

  Tamara snorted in disgust and turned away from the mirror, studying other details of the bathroom. As we walked out, though, those words repeated in my head. One royal family nearly gone. Others to follow.

  The Badicas were one of the smaller royal clans, it was true. But it was hardly like those who had been killed here were the last of them. There were probably almost two hundred Badicas left. That wasn't as many as a family like, say, the Ivashkovs. That particular royal family was huge and widespread. There were, however, a lot more Badicas than there were some other royals.