Aces Wilde: Immortal Vegas, Book 5 by Jenn Stark Read Free Book Online

nodded. “The ancient arbiter of sacred grounds, tied to the earth’s energy patterns. Makes sense.” I turned to him. “But ley lines circle the globe, Jerome. That’s like saying you’re likely to find grass in a field.”
    “Our thoughts exactly. There is an uptick in the birth of highly skilled Connecteds at the intersection points, but most of the intersection points have been accounted for, at least in Europe. And there remain outliers.”
    “So it’s a dead end.”
    “That line of inquiry, yes,” he said. “We cannot predict where the next strong children will emerge. Of course, if we can’t, our enemies can’t as well.” Without giving me a chance to comment on that, he moved to the map and picked up a ball of twine. “What we did notice, however, was perhaps more disturbing.”
    He began unraveling the twine from its bobbin, then hooked it on the tops of each cluster of dark pins, moving down and to the right, then up and to the left, back and forth. In no time, an image appeared in the center of the map, etched out in twine. I’d seen a deliberate incarnation of the image before, in Las Vegas. Gamon had used it to mark a grisly diagram of body dumps throughout the city, but we didn’t know why, precisely. There was no indication that Gamon was Jewish—but none that she wasn’t either.
    “Star of David,” I said.
    Jerome nodded. “The alpha and omega joined together. You’ll note there’s no population of practitioners in the center…that we’re aware of.”
    My brows leapt. “But there’s got to be something there.” I moved closer, peering at the map. “Are we reading too much into this? Do we know anything about the distribution of the dark practitioners in Asia or the Americas? Africa?”
    “They are active to be sure, but their concentration is not as large. The Old World, or what was known as such, seems to have held the highest concentration of practitioners for generations. And now this appears to be the center of those practitioners.”
    “What is that, Hungary?” I asked, leaning close. “The Ukraine, maybe. Okay, so—that’s where Gamon is, you think? In the center of that star?” I frowned. “Why not Israel, if she’s fixated on Hebrew symbology?”
    I could feel Jerome’s gaze on me. “I think perhaps there is a better question for you to ask yourself,” he said quietly. When I turned to him, his hands were clasped in front of his stomach, and he looked worn—more tired than I had ever seen him.
    “Jerome, what is it?” I took a few steps forward, but he waved me off.
    “I’m not the one you should worry about,” he said. “You’re asking questions about Gamon, and in fact, they are good questions to ask. She has become the figurehead of evil—but”—he paused, lifting a hand—“only the figurehead. You cut the head off a hydra, and it will grow a new head.”
    “That’ll take time, though,” I said. “In the meantime, this is one creature who deserves to be headless, even for the short term.” I gestured to take in the grounds outside this room. “What if she’s the usurper that little girl spoke of, the one I need to strike down?”
    “What if she is?” Jerome threw my words back at me. “Help me understand why you should be the one to wield the blade, Sara, versus merely guiding this sword to the right hand.” The priest’s words were kind, but they struck to the heart of my own insecurity. “I’ve pleaded with you for months—years—to work more with the children. To not only provide for their safety, which you have done amply—but to help them recover. To bend your skills to their future, not simply their present. You have rebuffed me at every turn, and that is your right to do so.”
    When I would have spoken, he kept going. “Yet now, I find that not only have you taken up a call to arms in the fight to protect these children, you’ve gone further. You’ve been named the head of a Chinese death syndicate. You seek the blood