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"There is a group of boundary witches who have dedicated theic," Katia said darkly "This group hunts down the few faic, and they take the young wo purposes" Her fists clenched, cruroup, but they thought ell hidden in our little village They rong" She paused again, fidgeting The story was hard for her

"When they came," she went on, "my mother was too old to bear more children, but they took Valerya They would have taken ht visit to ,to save her" Her voice turned bitter "They beat row up and have children itchblood"

"Until a few o," she continued, "I did not knohat happened to Valerya I did not think I ever would know But Lex has infornant, and she had twin girls Valerya died in childbirth, and one sister died as an adult Your friend Lex is the surviving twin"

Jesse and I exchanged a look We knew the other part of the story The two of us had stopped the nova ho had killed Lex’s sister Sa Katia I had incinerated her niece’s body would help at this point

"How did Lex know you were her aunt?" Jesse asked, quite reasonably

Katia gave us a tiny smile "Valerya told her"

When I processed that, my mouth was suddenly dry This is part of why the whole Old World still hates boundary witches They creep everybody out "What happened to you?" Jesse asked

"To roup did not find me later, I was sent to the United States, to be adopted anony her throat When she spoke again, it was in a rush, like she was getting so out of the way "The man as supposed to be my new father was a pedophile I will not talk about that time All you need to know is that I ran ahen I was thirteen, and Oskar found ure out the rest"

"You worked for hi you safe"

She nodded "I airls, it is true But I helped theet any pain And the men who visit vampire brothels, they like pain" Her voice cracked, and she looked out thefor a fewclose to our destination

"You think Oskar is ato look at me "But I did make it easier for the for hi theht of this wo we could have said Finally, Jesse gathered his thoughts enough to say, "One thing I still don’t understand Oskar does this thing with the necklaces, as a way to take ownership of you But Molly had a siood question, and it doubtless had so to do with how this Oskar was connected with Molly, but Katia shrugged On a hunch, I asked, "Does the naave ht be a little thick It really did seeot that look a lot "Of course Alonzo was Oskar’s father"

Okay, lanced at Jesse, who"Well, his maker," Katia corrected herself "He turned Oskar into a vampire so he would have an heir Oskar calls hielse "We’ve been so focused on Alonzo ht have made a male An heir"

"Did you ever meet Alonzo?" I asked Katia

She shook her head "He died the year before I met Oskar" Her lip curled a little "But Oskar worshipped him I think he had to The bonds between a va"

"We’ve heard," I muttered

"So back in the nineties, Molly killed Alonzo," Jesse said, thinking aloud "Not knowing he also had a son, Oskar Twenty years later, Oskar tracks down Molly in Los Angeles and kicks off this elaborate revenge scheme"