The Singer - Hunter Elizabeth (мир книг .txt) 📗

“Be prepared,” he had warned. “There is something going on here. Something big. Grigori are swarming the city. The local scribe house has been inundated and has even called on neighboring houses to help. It’s dangerous. Volund’s soldiers are everywhere.”

There was, of course, no talk of Grigori aggression in Vienna. Gabriel quietly took note of the information, then procured a car for the three scribes to borrow indefinitely. It might have been cramped in back, but it was enough for Leo to stretch out while Rhys took a turn during the eighteen-hour drive.

The modern highway sped past as Malachi watched out the window, alternately disturbed and comforted by how familiar and yet foreign the drive turned out to be.

“I’ve driven this route before,” he said to Rhys. “Many times, I think.”

“Probably.” Rhys reached for the cup of coffee he’d been nursing. “You were in Berlin for a long time. I imagine you drove this way when you went to Vienna.”

He frowned. “Would I have gone to Vienna much?”

“You were second to the Watcher in Berlin. I imagine you spent plenty of time there.”

Malachi shifted uncomfortably. “Konrad called me something when we met with him.”

“What?” The corner of Rhys’s mouth lifted. “The ‘Butcher’ thing?”

“Yes.”

The other scribe chuckled. “You loved that nickname. Cultivated it, once upon a time.”

“Why?”

“Because fear is as potent a weapon as fists or knives,” Rhys said. “Think of how many Grigori avoided Berlin knowing that a scribe known as ‘The Butcher’ was there.”

“So they simply went someplace else. What made Berlin more important than any other city?”

“It’s not more important or less, Malachi. But… we all have places that are significant.”

“And my parents died in Berlin.” He remembered what Konrad had said.

“Yes, they did,” Rhys said. “And when you returned to the city, you painted the walls red with Grigori blood.”

“It sounds like I was very angry.”

“You were. For hundreds of years, you were angry. Until you met Ava, I think.”

Ava. His heart ached with unknown longing. He hungered for something but couldn’t remember the taste.

“We all grieve in different ways,” Rhys said quietly.

Malachi tried to control his frustration. His past was a giant empty wound that would occasionally offer up a bubble of insight. But for the most part, there was nothing. Flashes of knowledge. An image. A scent memory. Most of what his mind offered him came from his childhood. His training. There were occasional flashes of Ava, but nothing concrete.

“You weren’t getting anywhere with the research into her family?” he asked Rhys.

“I’ve run into a brick wall. Her mother’s family is transparent. Grandparents. Great-grandparents. Ava told me once that her mother’s family didn’t talk much about their history, but it was relatively easy to find. French and German, mostly. Midwestern immigrants who came in the middle of the 1800s. Nothing about them stands out as having any supernatural origins. It’s her father who is the problem.”

“So it must be there.”

Rhys opened his mouth. Closed it. Finally, he said, “It goes against everything we know about Irin biology, but yes, it must be on her father’s side.”

“So her grandmother must have been Irina?”

“She must have been. And for Ava to be as powerful as she is, her blood must have been potent. Old. To not be diluted in the third generation, her grandmother must have been extraordinary.”

“But we know nothing about her.”

Rhys shook his head. “Her father is a musical genius, obviously, so the angelic blood shows there. But he had a normal—well, normal for him—relationship with Ava’s mother, so he’s not an Irin male. Not like we are.”

“Does he have any other children beside Ava?”

“Not that we know of.”

“Curious.”

“Or just careful,” Rhys said. “He doesn’t seem like the fatherly type.”

“No.” Though from what Malachi had learned of Ava’s father, perhaps his absence had been a blessing in disguise.

“So, Ava’s magic must come from her paternal grandmother, whom we have no records for except a single note on her father’s file that his mother was also named Ava.”

Malachi said, “Leo and I think that Reed hid her records. As an adult, we think he paid to have them disappear.”

“Why?”

“Why do we think so?” he asked. “Or why would he hide them at all?”

“Both.”

“He named his only daughter the same name as his mother. Do you think that is a coincidence?”

Rhys took the turnoff, concentrating on passing a large truck and ignoring Malachi’s comment. “I hadn’t considered that,” he said after traffic had cleared. “You’re right, a coincidence like that is highly unlikely.”

“So Jasper Reed knew his biological mother’s name. And he had money before Ava was born. He’d already made several records at that time. He would have had the money to make her records disappear if he wanted to and knew the right people.”

“And from what I’ve heard, there is more than one person in his employ who has a questionable relationship with the law.”

Malachi said, “So he knew his mother’s name and she has disappeared from the public record. It’s not hard to make the connection that it was deliberate.”

“So the other ‘why’ remains? Why would he hide it? I’ve read interviews with him. He’s very open about being raised in the foster system. Even seems proud of it, in his own way.”

“Maybe she was a criminal.”

“She blackmailed him?” Rhys offered. “And he didn’t want anyone to know?”

“Is she even still alive?”

“The secrecy doesn’t seem consistent with his public persona.”

Rhys nodded. “He’s very well-known. Most of his adult life has been lived in the public eye, and he’s notoriously unstable. He’s been arrested. Publicly intoxicated. Repeated stints in rehabilitation clinics for drugs and alcohol. He doesn’t seem to hide anything.”

“Except…” Malachi’s voice dropped when he realized what Rhys had missed. “Except Ava.”

“What?”

“Ava. He hides Ava. Have you ever heard of him having a daughter?”

Rhys thought for a moment. “No. He doesn’t speak about her in interviews.”

Malachi grudgingly acknowledged, “He seems to be very protective of her, as far as keeping her out of the spotlight. And from what you’ve said, it was his money and his influence with Ava’s mother that kept her independent.”

“Ava said her father was adamant that nothing was wrong with her mentally. Even…” The car slowed as Rhys’s thoughts drifted. He was blasted to awareness by an angry honk behind them. “Blast.”

“Do you want me to drive?”

“No. I’m not tired. I was just thinking of something Ava told me once.”

“What?”

“Her father set up an independent trust fund for her to access when she was twenty-two. Her. Only her. Her mother had no access, though she had other child support while Ava was growing up. But it was the trust fund that made Ava independent. She even owns a house in Los Angeles that Reed bought her in the hills near Malibu. Very private. She never stays there, but he bought it for her.”

“So—”

“Reed knew her as a child. She thought he was only a family friend, but she knew him. Quite well. And Ava said he was one of the few people who never treated her any differently, even when she had massive anxiety and mood swings. Even when the doctors were telling her mother to commit her. At her worst—which sounded like puberty—Reed was one of the few adults in her life that Ava said she didn’t have to guard herself around.”

The light began to dawn. “You think he knew she heard voices? Did she tell him?”

“No. But if his mother was Irina, maybe he did know, Malachi. Maybe in some way, he knew his mother was different. Knew his daughter was different in the same way.”

“He named his daughter after his mother, then hid both of them from the world.”