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Outside, I spent a fewfor listening devices--or, God forbid, explosives This was one of those ti fro there Either Katia and her pal hadn’t thought to track led out, brushed off my pants and top, and climbed into the van to head don

Before I could even turn the key, however, ht pink iteer seat My hand froze on the ignition Molly’s backpack I had cootten about it, and whoever had moved the van for Dashiell hadn’t touched it

I reached down and pulled the pack onto the passenger seat Every va" handy, a habit left over froitiht shoith pitchforks and torches But I’d never actually looked inside one before The back compartment held a laptop, and I checked that first, but of course it was password protected I haveinto a MacBook Air isn’t one of the to be tiht, and even if I could convince Dashiell’s security team to let me talk to Molly, I didn’t want to raise toowith the bad guys

I unzipped the backpack’s e of clothes and a pair of shoes Beneath that, a brick of cash and a passport with Molly’s photo and current ID: Molly Arwen Greene I dropped those on the seat next to the bag and kept digging There were a few other iteive Molly’s nareement for her base with makeup and a sh-quality pocketknives, probably what she used to cut the people she fed from--vampires could feed with their teeth, but the practice had fallen out of favor decades ago, after the police learned to distinguish between human and animal bites I unfolded the blades and checked them I didn’t see any blood, but Molly was probably careful enough to clean them, at least to the naked eye

And that was pretty , honestly I don’t knohat I had been expecting, but I’d sort of hoped for soun, et yours!" with the name and address of her archnemesis at the bottom That would have been handy

The sky outside et on the road if I was going to be close to on ti, but I reached in and felt around inside first, just in case My fingers touched so small, cold, and ers back instinctively, but it wasn’t sharp, so I reached back in, pinched , until I lifted out a heavy gold chain At the end was a goldinside out and found a tiny hole in the lining Molly had hidden the pendant inside

I dropped the bag to examine the necklace It was heavy, and definitely old: the ht have once been a coin, though they now just looked like a bunch of bumps I flipped it over This side had been purposefully worn smooth and shiny, and two dates had been inscribed on it in fancy calligraphy: May 1st, 1905 on top, and below it, May 1st, 1925 Hmm She’d been turned in 1905, which made 1925 twenty years after she’d been turned So that was the year her vampire apprenticeship had ended and she’d earned her freedom from Alonzo

Below the inscribed dates, a third date had been added, but this one had been roughly scratched in by hand, with so like a pin March 13th, 1996 I wasn’t sure about the significance of that one, but I could take a guess: the day Molly had killed Alonzo

I weighed theIt res that soldiers wear Had Alonzotheir ownership by hi, abusive lanced at etI leaned sideways so I could shove the necklace in --it would leave a lump in my pants that would look funny to a bunch of twitchy, suspicious Old World locals Shrugging to myself, I put the necklace over my head and tucked it under all ofbetween my breasts, way beyond where anyone would be able to see it just by looking at me Then I started the van and headed don

Chapter 27

Traffic going don on a Friday night wasn’t for the faint of heart While I waited to move the car forward, I called Jesse to check in, but he didn’t answer Probably stillthat reception was bad inside the theater, but I would call hiht

I also checked in with Theo Hayne at 5:30, just to make sure there hadn’t been any fresh surprises at thethe rest of the day He proiven a blood bag in her cell, and Dashiell and Beatrice were currently dressing for the Trials Hayne was going home to catch a few hours of sleep I kneas probably exhausted--he’d been working overti Kirsten test her huood tiet into the Trials themselves, but he would show up in person to lend a hand afterward, in case Count Asshat decided to ht

The sun dipped below the horizon a little after five, taking the golden tones out of the city and painting it in gray concrete twilight I liked Los Angeles at this tiht and cartoony, less the sunny Hollywoodized LA that everyone sees in the httilamorous women in slinky dresses and pin curls, or hos on Skid Row I always thought LA was its ht after the sun fell This hen you noticed the real people who ain,roeles Theatre was the last of the great don movie palaces built on Broadway, back in 1930, when everyone thought LA was going to have a theater district to rival New York’s After World War II, the masses eles Theatre and its brethren stood derelict for years Some of the palaces were torn down, but a few had been resurrected and renovated in the past thirty years, when LA city planners realized that ood idea to turn all of the local history into parking structures

At first, I had thought the idea of hosting the Trials in a building that looked like it had been broken off froeles Theatre was stunning in its opulence, with a ballrooe, and French Baroque furnishings that would make the phantom of the opera cry with envy It wasn’t exactly what I pictured when I i to Dashiell hand out death sentences Even after studying the binders and learning how dry and anticlieles Theatre seemed like a bizarre choice

It was Kirsten who had pulledThe whole point of having the Trials noas to appease the eles Old World ere thirsty for dra up minor conflicts because they were bored with the peace By holding the Trials in a theater, Dashiell was giving the people what they wanted: a show

Moreover, he and the others were hoping that the grandeur of the Theatre would naturally inspire better behavior in the attendees That ht sound naive, but people are conditioned to adjust their behavior in settings like s Voices are lowered, attire is more fors rained formality would extend to how the Trials attendees treated one another

"Plus," Kirsten had added, "it’s big enough to hold all of us"