Trail of Dead (Scarlett Bernard #2)(27)

“Were you aware that he was spending time with Olivia Powell?” Even with his humanity, Dashiell’s tone was calm, quiet, and absolutely terrifying. Laurence swallowed.

“Yes, sir.”

Dashiell leaned back as far as he could without actually bending his spine, gesturing for the other man to go on.

“I don’t know how it started, though,” Laurence began, already sounding defensive. “I was living in Santa Barbara, and I came down a couple of times to visit Albert and some other friends. Get a drink, talk about old times. During one of those visits Albert was…just different.” He trailed off.

“Different how?” Jesse prompted. He was in his element now, eyes focused on Laurence like they were the only two in the room.

“He was…lighter, I suppose would be a good word. I asked him about it over…” He glanced at Jesse and me, “uh, drinks, and he said he had a girl. He talked about her like she was a goddess, even mentioned trying to turn her someday.” Laurence glanced at Dashiell nervously. “I know we’re not supposed to try to turn new vampires without your permission, sir, but I assumed that he would ask for it.”

“Did he?” Will asked Dashiell, frowning.

Dashiell bristled. “No, of course not. Even if it was unlikely to work, there is no way that I would have allowed Olivia to become one of us. Albert was going against my explicit orders.” His voice darkened enough for Laurence to visibly flinch. “What else?” he demanded.

Laurence’s brow furrowed as he concentrated. “He said…she saw great potential in him.”

“What do you mean, potential?” I asked warily.

“I—I don’t know,” Laurence said. He wiped his hand across his forehead and then held it in front of his face, studying the perspiration like an alien had just sprouted from his hairline. “She had…plans, he said. That could change the way things worked in Los Angeles. I dismissed it as nonsense. I swear, sir, that’s all I know about it,” Laurence said to Dashiell. He was pleading, and I suddenly understood that Laurence was here in Pasadena to be punished for not telling Dashiell this story right away. Maybe that just meant he had to serve as Dashiell’s butler for a while.

Maybe.

“The last time I spoke to Albert was in early September. Until you called me down here I had no idea he was…missing.”

Dashiell looked at Jesse, who gave a small shrug. Dashiell waved a hand dismissively, and Laurence did plenty of bowing and scraping as he backed out of the room.

When he was gone, Will said to Dashiell, “But Olivia was a vampire for almost a year before the witch murders. Didn’t you know?”

I doubt anyone but Will could have gotten away with second-guessing Dashiell like that, but Will’s tone was so neutral and reasonable that Dashiell simply shrugged. “She kept a very low profile for many months, and Albert continued to work here, even after the events of the fall,” he said, with a little nod toward Jesse and me. “I didn’t find out that she had been turned until Scarlett told me she showed up at the hospital. I never got close enough to ask who had done it.”

I jumped in with the question that was nagging at me. “Can we back up a second? We’re skipping a really important step. Laurence said Albert was in love with her, and she used him to turn into a vampire.” I’d figured as much, but I would bet every penny I’d ever have that she didn’t love him back. Olivia didn’t love people. She loved owning things. “But Olivia was a null, just like me. So in order to become a vampire, wouldn’t she have had to become human first? Is that even possible?”

There was a long, heavy pause. Finally, Kirsten said, “Scarlett, the truth is that we don’t know. No one knows all that much about your power. We only know what doesn’t work against it.”

“What does that mean?”

“You’ve seen all the old books at my house, right?”

I nodded.

“There are stories in there, plenty of them, about witches trying to cast a spell against a null. Nothing ever worked. Then in the twenties a New York witch became friends with a null, and they did a little experimenting. I can tell you with absolute certainty that there’s no spell that even works against you, much less can take away your power. If we physically, permanently change something, you can’t undo that, but there’s just no active spell that can work against you or around you. We know that much, but we don’t know where your power comes from or why it works against magic.” Her voice rose with frustration.

I glanced at Will and Dashiell. Will was shaking his head. “The wolves haven’t had a ton of interactions with nulls, and we certainly don’t have documentation. We just know that when we get close to a null—in either form—we’re suddenly normal humans again. Simple as that.”

“Dashiell?” I asked. “Any ideas about how Olivia turned?”

He shrugged gracefully. “Don’t you think I would tell you if I did?”

I had a few potential answers to that, but without warning, Kirsten slammed her hand against a side table. “Enough with the prince of darkness evasion crap,” she snapped. “If you’d kept us in the loop from the beginning, this might never have happened. You knew, you knew who she was, how crazy she was, and you still let her live in your city after she turned. You let her live, period, even knowing what she did to Scarlett.”