When Villains Rise (Market of Monsters #3) - Rebecca Schaeffer Page 0,63
mouth, arms fast, careful not to give him an opportunity to bite her.
He licked his dry lips, his chin brushing against the plastic tubes sucking his blood out. “Fine. I’ll answer your questions.”
“Excellent.”
“But first, answer one of mine.”
Nita shrugged. “All right.”
“What did I do that you want vengeance for?”
Nita blinked. “Pardon?”
“You said you wanted vengeance, that you’re not a forgive-and-forget kind of person.” He blinked slowly. “But I don’t know what I’ve done. I’d like to know.”
She stared at him. “You . . . what?”
“Was it because I came to visit you in the market?” He sounded curious. “Are you getting vengeance on everyone who came to see you?”
“What? No.” Though eventually maybe she would. She hadn’t really thought about that. She wondered how many of the people who’d visited while she was in the market were hiring people to hunt her down now. A lot, probably. “You killed someone important to me.”
“Oh.” He considered. “Who were they? I’ve killed a lot of people over the years.”
“You killed him two weeks ago. Just before you went to the market. In Chicago.”
His cold eyes blinked at her. “I see. And who told you I killed him?” He sighed, veins standing out blue on his pale, bloodless face. “No, wait, let me guess. INHUP?”
Nita blinked. “Yes.”
His smile was bitter. “How convenient that all their enemies die by my hand. You know, if I’d committed all the crimes INHUP claims I did, I’d never have time to sleep.”
“Vampires don’t sleep.”
“That’s beside the point.”
Nita crossed her arms. “So you want me to believe you’re innocent?”
He shrugged. “You can believe whatever you want.”
Nita considered the possibility. She did only have INHUP’s word for it. But if Zebra-stripes believed being innocent would keep him alive, he’d obviously lie.
She put the thought aside now and moved on. Whether he was innocent or not, it didn’t change what happened next. He had answers to her mother’s past, her father’s death, and, most importantly, he had information on INHUP that must have kept him off the list.
Nita intended to find out what it was.
“My turn for questions.” Nita crossed her arms. “Firstly your name.”
“Andrej.”
“Andrej what?”
He hesitated. “Smirnov.”
Nita raised her eyebrows. “Like the liquor?”
He smiled, but it seemed fake. “Exactly.”
He was lying. That definitely wasn’t his real name.
She brushed it aside. It wasn’t important.
“Why are you hunting Monica?” she asked.
“What’s she to you?” he asked, considering. “You have the same ability, so my guess is you’re her daughter. Though I never saw Monica as the motherly type. More as the eat-her-own-young type.”
If Nita had needed proof that the two of them knew each other, that would have sealed the deal. That was one of the most accurate descriptions of her mother she’d ever heard.
“How long have you known my mother?” Nita asked.
“Oh, a long, long time.” Andrej made a face. “She ages better than I do.”
“You don’t age.”
“My point exactly.”
Nita crossed her arms, something unhappy squiggling in her chest at the implications. “So why do you want her dead?”
Andrej stilled, so completely, perfectly, inhumanly still, it made the hairs crawl on Nita’s skin. Then he quietly hissed, “She murdered someone very important to me.”
That didn’t surprise Nita. At all. “Who?”
“My . . .” He considered. “We were never married, but it feels like a disservice to call her my girlfriend. We were together almost forty years.”
Nita raised her eyebrow. “Also a vampire?”
Given how many vampires had ended up on Nita’s dissection table over the years, it really was a miracle none of their friends had come for vengeance before now.
“No. Human.”
Nita blinked. “Why would my mother bother killing a human?”
Andrej hesitated, and then said carefully, “She was a very important human.”
Nita raised her eyebrows, waiting. She could feel something here, something that tugged on her memory. She’d wondered if Andrej had been the monster in the story Nita’s mother told, but she hadn’t been sure. But in that story, the monster was the killer. Her grief had seemed genuine, but who could tell with Nita’s mother?
Andrej seemed just as angry and grief-stricken. Which could also be an act. But they couldn’t both have killed the same person. Though she supposed they could both blame each other for her death?
“How did she die?” Nita asked.
Andrej looked away. “Trickery and lies.”
Nita rolled her eyes. “That is the vaguest answer I’ve ever heard.”
Andrej glared at her.
Nita shrugged. “I mean, if you don’t answer, I’ll just kill you. Cooperation buys you time.”
His jaw tightened like he was imagining ripping her throat out, and she