Page 10 of Death Deals

“She’s necessary,” he said firmly. “Please, sit. Let me explain.”

Hector exchanged glances with the other Perez men near him before taking his seat again. The other members of the two families followed. Cassandra took her place beside the head of the table, but instead of Andre sitting, he remained standing by me.

“Did you bring your piece of the letter?” he asked Hector.

He nodded and gestured to the young vamp at the opposite end of the table with a manila folder in front of him. He carried it to his leader with gentle hands. Hector promptly opened it to reveal a piece of brown, thin paper that had been laminated in attempts to preserve it, but even the plastic was beginning to wear down with its age and what seemed like frequent handling.

With shaky hands, Hector slid it closer to Andre. Seeming pleased, Andre nodded Cassandra’s way, and she reached under the table and produced a thick black bag. From the frontmost pocket, she pulled out a pair of rubber gloves, which she pulled on with ease. Then, carefully, she reached into the main compartment and took out a folder much thicker than Hector’s. She undid the clasp and eased out a plastic bag.

Curious, I leaned in for a closer look. Like the Perezes’, in the bag was a fragment of decaying paper, ripped and frayed around the edges. When Cassandra placed it near the other on the table, it became clear the two pieces were once one. And that there was another good chunk of the puzzle missing.

“And you’re sure no one in your family can read the script?” Andre asked as his gaze roamed over the faded scribbles and symbols across the torn paper.

Hector’s eyes narrowed. “If we could, why would we be here?”

“Because we have the other piece.”

“This is true,” he acknowledged with a tilt of his head. “We’re expecting the Omaris have the rest of it.”

“And there’s a chance they can read the language, too.”

“So, Geoffrey was also unsuccessful in his attempts?” Hector asked.

Geoffrey? Was that the DeMonte’s king? That was my guess.

A muscle in Andre’s jaw popped out as he ground his teeth. “Yes. Even the most skilled researchers and linguists could not find any record of this dialect.”

“We had a similar result,” Hector replied.

“It’s another reason we should go to the north and meet with Imani.”

Imani, the Omari’s Queen.

At the mention of her, Hector’s lips curled in disgust. “She won’t see us willingly.”

Andre shrugged. “I remember a time when I believed that about your king as well. Yet here you are.”

He huffed. “Imani is a different beast.”

“If we ever want to know our origins and acquire peace, we must take the risk.”

So, that speech he’d spewed about wanting peace between families hadn’t been crap? Huh. And they believed this letter was the key to it all?

I took a step closer and peered around Andre for a better look.

“What if, after we decipher the letter, we discover it only damns us further,” Hector asked. “Gives us validation in this war.”

Squinting hard, my gaze roamed over the letter. Whatever ink the writer had used, it was close to invisible by now and no wonder—if what Andre and Hector were suspecting was true, that would make this thing thousands of years old. Since the beginning of their kind’s very existence.

“I refuse to believe that,” Andre said. “Whatever is written here is only for the closure of the past. Not for any type of retaliation for the future.”

The longer I stared at the letter, the darker the lines and symbols became. They shifted before my eyes, turning into words I knew. Just like with the demon cure in Lisa’s mysterious box. The one I had given her in another life.

Holy shit. I could read it.

One thing was for sure, it wasn’t in the same language as the cure had been, but I could still make out the words, even with the connections to my past lives lost.

Excitement bubbled up. That was a good sign, wasn’t it?

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