“I’m sorry, Molly,” Jesse said quietly. I had sort of forgotten he was there, but when I looked over he had a calm, resigned expression on his face. Of course, Jesse used to be a cop. He would have interviewed victims of many kinds of abuse. “I know you don’t want to talk about this. But someone used a boundary witch to make you kill your roommates, and that same person has them now. What happened to you and your sisters might be happening again.”

Chapter 18

And that was when Molly snapped.

“He’s dead,” she shouted, her voice suddenly thunderous in the tiny space. She got up into Jesse’s face and shoved him with all her strength, which really only rocked him back a step. He made no move to stop her. “If I know anything in this life or any other, it’s that Alonzo is dead, dead, dead. I made sure of it.” Her clenched fingers jerked in a tiny tugging motion.

“I believe you,” Jesse said calmly. “I believe you killed him, and you deserve a goddamned parade for it, at the very least. But you said that Alonzo was special, that he had a gift for turning new vampires, right?”

She nodded, still glaring at him. “We call it bloodcraft,” she said, her voice cool. “The making of new vampires.”

Jesse paused, giving us both a chance to process that. I hadn’t known that some vampires could be better at bloodcraft than others, but it made sense. Some witches specialized in certain types of magic, and some werewolves were magically stronger than others. Why wouldn’t vampires have varying strengths, too?

“Does that work like human genetics?” Jesse asked. Molly’s brow furrowed, but I saw where he was going with this. Witch specialties pass down from generation to generation.

“Would Alonzo’s offspring be good at bloodcraft too?” I translated to Molly.

“Yes,” she said tightly.

“Then we need to investigate your sisters,” Jesse concluded.

Before she could yell at him he rushed to say, “Molly, I’ve known more than one prostitute who was madly in love with her pimp, even though the guy beat the shit out of her every night. And this Alonzo must have turned hundreds of vampires over the years. If just one of them decided she needed to avenge him, maybe she came after your friends to get back at you.”

Molly visibly flinched away from him. As for me, I had to clench my fists to keep from slapping Jesse across the face as hard as I could. In that moment I hated him—not because he was wrong, but because he was a man and he was standing there hurting my hurt friend even more.

“No,” Molly said at last. “I don’t believe it. Maybe one of them would come after me on her own, but none of Alonzo’s villani would turn more women against their will.” Jesse looked like he wanted to argue, but she added, “Even if they did, none of my sisters live anywhere near Los Angeles. And I have no way of finding Alonzo’s other offspring.”

Jesse absorbed that for about ten seconds and then moved on. “Okay, did Alonzo have friends or allies who could have done this?” he asked. “Someone else who would think you deserve to die for killing him?”

Molly burst out laughing. It was not an amused laugh, and it definitely had an edge of hysteria. Jesse glanced my way, but I just shrugged.

“I’m sorry,” Molly said once she’d calmed down. “I thought you knew. The answer is everyone. Most of the Old World thinks I should die for killing Alonzo. I’ve been a pariah since the day I took his head. I’ve had to run—” she cut herself off, shaking her head to say it didn’t matter anymore.

And then I got it. This was why she’d moved in an unusual pattern across the US, why she’d laid low even though her tormenter was dead. Because people blamed her for it. “Seriously?” I cried, outraged. “Killing the abusive moth—”

“You’re both human,” Molly interrupted, her voice so quiet that I was forced to shut up or miss her words. It was a kindergarten teacher move, but very effective. “But you have parents, or you did once. Can you imagine murdering them, violently and in cold blood? Even if they hurt you, even if they . . .” she trailed off.

I went still, and I felt Jesse do the same, afraid to break the spell of her words. “And those are just your parents,” she said abruptly. “There are no magic bonds. Vampire magic evolved for loyalty. We are reborn needing to obey our master. We may kill another vampire for war, for territory, but your dominus, the one who sired you?” her voice broke. “You have no idea how hard that is, or how taboo. I was lucky”—she gave a bitter chuckle—“they didn’t kill me for what I did. If there was still a council, they might have. Dashiell was the only vampire in North America willing to take me in.”

I stared at her with my mouth open for a second. No wonder Molly stayed on the fringes of even the small Old World society in LA. And Dashiell was . . . the good guy? I suppose it shouldn’t have surprised me—Dashiell was young for a cardinal vampire, and had a lot of ideas that didn’t necessarily fit with the old ways.

“Alonzo was a monster, Molly,” I said, as gently as I could.

“We’re all monsters,” she said matter-of-factly. “You know the funniest part? What he did, the way he treated us . . . that wasn’t even why I killed him. Not really. But it doesn’t matter now.”

In the hall outside the door, I could make out heavy, deliberate footsteps. Hayne, letting us know our time was up.

I darted forward and grabbed Molly’s hands. She squeezed them, looking surprised. I am not a touchy-feely person, but Molly was. Or at least, I had thought she was. The person in front of me wasn’t the bubbly, playful girl with whom I’d lived for so long. She was . . . deadened. No pun intended.

“Give us something to go on here,” I begged. “Some way to find whoever did this.”

“I wish I could.”

“Where would they stay?” Jesse pressed. “What would they need, to keep the girls? Who would they have to bring into their circle of trust?” She didn’t respond to any of the questions, but before she could say, “I don’t know,” Jesse added, “Who knew you were living by USC?”

Molly paused. I could hear Hayne’s key fitting into the door lock. “Actually . . . only Dashiell, Beatrice, and Frederic,” she said slowly. “But that doesn’t mean they were involved. One of them may have told someone else.”

Jesse and I exchanged a look. At least we had our next destination.

Minutes later, with Shadow in tow, Jesse peeled out of Dashiell’s driveway so fast that I worried about leaving tire tracks. Not that I cared about Dashiell’s pretty tile driveway, but all our efforts to keep the visit a secret would be pretty futile if we left gigantic black marks behind.

“Wow,” Jesse said absently.

“Yeah.” I pulled out my phone. I hadn’t had time to ask Abigail for Frederic’s daytime address before Hayne hustled us out of there, so I sent her a text. She wouldn’t like helping me, but she’d do it on Dashiell’s orders. Or her brother would make her.

“You didn’t know?” Jesse said, glancing over at me. “About Alonzo?”

I shook my head. “I figured Molly had been through something, but . . . no.”

“So why do you think she killed him?”

“No idea. And aside from Frederic the Likely Dipshit, I can’t think of anyone to ask, at least until after sunset,” I said. “It would be great if we could get five minutes with Dashiell, but I’m not sure he’ll have time, at least not until after tonight’s trial. Maybe I could get Beatrice alone—”

My phone beeped. Abigail had texted me an address in Sylmar. I had no idea where that was, but when I told Jesse he made a face and put the address into his GPS.

“What?” I asked. “Bad neighborhood?”

Jesse rolled his eyes. “I hate that phrase. No neighborhood is completely bad. But yeah, crime’s been picking up in Sylmar the last couple of years. Drugs and gang violence, mostly.”

“Makes sense,” I mused. “Vampires tend to congregate at the edge of chaos. Neighborhoods where people go missing or lose time on a regular basis, but not so crime-ridden that police are knocking on doors all the time.”