Free Afterglow (Brotherhood of the Blade Trilogy #2) by Eve Paludan Page A

she said.
    “ Me neither, only by reputation—they should have listened to your plea for help.”
    “ You listened. That is enough.”
    “ You put too much faith in me, but I’ll do my best to find Lucian.” I opened the pantry door and we went back into the tiny kitchen.
    I tried to think if there was any way that it could have been contrived by humans that Uta and her children had been seated next to me in the train. With all of my detours to get tickets, cash, food and supplies, I came to this verbal conclusion and told her:
    “Your faith is remarkable.”
    “ Everyone needs to believe in something greater than ourselves,” she replied.
    “ Play with us! Play with us!” the twins clamored at my knees. I was amazed at their English but apparently, many people were multilingual, even small children. Probably due to American Disney videos.
    “ I can’t play right now, children,” I said to them and they pouted a bit.
    I opened my backpack and took off my heavy pullover sweater and put on my flak jacket. Then the sweater went back on over it. I checked my weapons in the bathroom and used the toilet while I was in there.
    I washed my hands and face and dried them on the worn, but clean towels. I looked like a wild man, with my dyed dark hair dirty and tangled, and the whites of my eyes bloodshot, contrasting with the blue of my irises. I looked like a nightmare had just awakened me. I drank frigid water from the faucet and exited the bathroom.
    “ It’s time,” I said apologetically.
    Uta looked crushed but excited.
    “Uncle Rand has to say goodbye now, children,” Uta said. There were fearful tears in her eyes. For me, and for her husband, whose fate she didn’t know.
    When they each lifted their little faces expectantly, I got choked up and bent down—I pressed my lips to the children’s warm apple-red cheeks, and took my leave of the cozy rooms above the closed butcher shop.
    It was official. If I didn’t bring back their daddy, I should just go directly to hell.
     
     
     
    Chapter Ten
     
    I wasn’t convinced that urgent prayer and lighting a candle had brought Uta and me together on a train. I smelled a rat. But a good rat. My guess was that someone in the Brotherhood of the Blade or the Sisterhood of the Scythe had something to do with this connection of me and Uta. Or maybe even Gabby? Yeah, Gabby. She had apparently been so clever at vampire espionage that she should get a posthumous medal from us. In fact, I was going to suggest it to Lucas.
    Anyway, I hoped that these guys were not really involved: the Illuminati. I didn’t even want those guys to know I existed . I was scared for Uta that they knew she did. I hoped to hell that she had lied to me about being in Zürich to see the Illuminati and that maybe Gabby had somehow set this up for Uta to sit by me on the train, and baited me by mentioning the name of the place, just before she died, since she knew I would go right there and look for Kristen. Yeah, that made way more sense than any of the other b.s.—like the hokey palm reading—that I was supposed to believe about how Uta connected with me.
    As I sped along almost silently on the narrow dirt roads and across frozen fields and through forests, I reminded myself that I had never looked a gift horse in the mouth. And I sure wasn’t about to start doing it now.
    Lucian’s electric motorbike with the studded off-road snow tires was an unexpected boon. I couldn’t even imagine how I would have gotten to the Raven Citadel ruins by dark if I had been on foot. It was a long way from the last bus stop, through deep snow. The map was also insanely helpful. Uta had even known where the cameras and motion sensors were on the property. And where the fences were. She had even written the Romanian words and some phonetic translations for me, of the names of streets and roads. She would have made a great espionage agent.
    When I saw how accurate Uta’s map was, and her hand-drawn description of