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                They

remained at the hotel for several more days, occasionally meeting with the

pope. He would have loved to spend more time with them, but he did have a lot

of appointments to keep. In the mean time, they kept themselves occupied.

Leonardo remained with his nose buried in the computer, much to the chagrin of

Emile, who was truly infatuated with the old man. But for the moment, it was

information that the master wanted. He was a glutton for learning.

                He

marveled at simple things like ball point pens, and wondered at the "magic"

that had done away with an ink well. The printer was another marvel for him,

and he nearly broke it taking it apart to examine it. He was like a kid in a

candy shop. No device was too small or too simple to attract his attention.

                He

split his time between researching the big family names he knew to be the kind,

following them through history. He laughed at times, at some of the false

presumptions that had been made about some of the people he had known. "I would

expect a certain about of incorrect information being out and about, since we

did purposely cloud some of the things we did, but some of this stuff is almost

outrageous!"

                Maggie

would sit with him sometimes, helping him navigate the web, but he was learning

his way around it on his own. When she got bored, she looked up Edward and

tried to talk him into doing something fun, but he was feeling ill at ease.

                "Sorry

Mags. I'm just not feeling it right now. I still don't know how we're going to

get back home."

                "Leave

that to me."

                He grabbed

her and gave her a Dutch rub. "And how do you propose to do that? Are you going

to sprout wings and fly us home?"

                She

pulled away from his rough attention "Maybe. Who knows what the rings can do?"

                He

laughed. "A winged werewolf? Now that would be truly frightening!"

                "Laugh

all you want! But never under estimate me." She was scowling a little.

                He sobered

up. "You know, I try not to. There's a lot more to you than even I can fathom."

                "And

don't you forget it!"

                He

sighed. "Like you'd ever let me!"

                One

morning Maggie was walking by the computer and stopped suddenly as Leonardo was

flipping through some images. He was enamored with the idea of photography. As

he said it, it's not as satisfying as

painting I'm sure, but to capture a pure image of a person is remarkable.

He had been writing huge lists of names and families as he found them, and his

lists had grown enormous. He didn't explain fully what he was doing, but it was

obvious he was tracing the lines of the Kind.

                His

lists were based off of families he knew, and in no way reflected a complete

list of all the kind that had ever existed. There was no way of predicting his

own lineage with this effort.  But as he

said, there was no point in worrying about any other families right now. The

lines tended to interweave themselves, and they often reemerged stronger, but

not always within the entire family.

                He was

very keen on studying what he could on genetics. The study made sense to him,

and so many things fell into place when he understood about dominant and

recessive genes. It explained why some had the power and others didn't. He was

interested to learn that a bite could induce someone who was a carrier of the

genes to transform, as had been the case with Edward. He delved into antibodies

and immunity too.

                The

problem he had was that he only knew of full werewolf lines from his own time,

and piecing Edward's backwards was only partially successful. And Maggie was a

full blown enigma. It was that is right up to that moment she walked by the

computer. She halted and stared as an image flipped across the screen before

disappearing.

                "Wait!"

                The

master nearly wet himself he was so intent on his work. "What? Why?"

                "Who

was that woman you just had up on the screen?"

                He

backtracked and pulled up the image. "This person?"

                She

pushed him aside. "I know that face. I know this photograph. I've seen it

before."

                Leonardo

moved over so that she could squeeze into the space. "I see. Well, you would

know her better than I would. She is far after my time."

                Maggie

was running her finger over the screen, tracing the shape of the woman's, or

rather, the young lady's face.  Edward

noticed the change in her demeanor. He came and crouched down alongside her.

                "What's

the matter Mags?"

                She

looked up at him. "Do you know who this person is?"

                He

looked at the name on the webpage. "Well, according to this she is Anastasia Nicholaevna."

He stopped. "Why does that sound familiar?"

                Leonardo

shifted the page. It moved to one on a royal family. The royal family in fact. That of Tsar Nicholas of Russia. This

photo was of one of the daughters of Tsar Nicholas.

                "Well,

there you go Mags. This photo is of the fabled daughter of the last Russian

tsar. You probably saw her picture in school or the library."

                She

reached over and grabbed him by the hair. She leaned into his ear. "Don't

patronize me. Don't do it."

                He was

rather taken aback. "But I wasn't. Where else could you have seen this

photograph?"

                She was

still staring at the screen. "In my grandmother's house."

                "And

why would your grandmother have this photograph?"

                Maggie

turned to him, her eyes wide. "Because it was the only photograph she had of

herself from when she was a young girl!"

                Edward

slipped and fell all the way to the floor. "What?!!!"

                She

turned to him, her mouth hanging open. "I'm telling you, this is a photograph

of my grandmother."

                "But Mags,

that would make her well over a hundred years old now!"

                "Well,

she looked old the last time I saw her; older in fact that I never thought my

mother could have been her child."

                Edward

was still trying to grasp this information. She had mentioned her grandmother's

name once before. What had she said? Anna Nicholson. This woman had been hiding

in plain sight all along! Everyone of an age knew the story of the fake

Anastasia. Now he wondered if she had been a ruse, a distraction to divert

attention away from the real thing.

                Edward

turned to the master. "How old can the kind live to?"

                "Well

beyond the normal span of the average person. But when we don't age normally,

it becomes obvious. And that attracts attention. Then they must go underground,

or change their name and their appearance. It doesn't do well to attract

unwanted attention."

                Edward

cocked his head to look at the master. "Do you mean like having a life and

death fight on the ground of your old home?"

                "Exactly

like that!"

                The

irony was lost on the master. He was more interested in Maggie's grandmother.

"Is this woman still alive?"

                Maggie

shook her head. "I don't know. She might be, but she seems to have disappeared

after my mother died."

                He pressed

her for more information. "Curious. Would your mother's death have attracted

attention to her?"

                "Yes, I

think so. She would have been my only living relative, and therefore my only

real legal guardian."

                "Yes,

so it makes sense. If they discovered her real age, that information would have

raised suspicion. I think she did you a favor by vanishing. But it seems to

corroborate what you seen to know about your history. And that family has ties

to the kind. Who was your grandmother married to?"

                "I

don't know. There were never any photographs of my grandfather around."

                "Hmmmm.

So this gets more interesting, doesn't it?"

                She

returned to staring at the screen. "So my great grandfather was the ruler of

Russia?"

                "So it

seems."

                Edward

snapped out of his shock. "But it's impossible. Anastasia was killed in like,

nineteen seventeen or nineteen eighteen."

                Leonardo

was unimpressed. "Yes, and a short while ago you were completely dead. Never

underestimated the Kind. We are tough and resilient. Was she impaled with

silver?"

                "Not

that I know of. She was shot with a gun."

                "Just

like those men at my estate used? Those were no more bothersome that biting

flies."

                "Meaning

that unless they used silver bullets, she would have survived being gunned

down?"

                "Most

likely my dear. That's not to say everyone in the family would have survived,

but it seems simple enough that she could have. All she would have need was an

accomplice; someone to dig her back up again after they buried her body."

                Edward

was staring at Maggie. "Looks like you're royalty kiddo, though a lot of good

that notoriety will do us. But I have to wonder who your grandfather was. He

was most likely a Russian too, don't you think?"

                The

master spoke up. "So it would seem, unless she had an accomplice who wasn't a

lover."

                "What

makes you think she had a lover?" ask Maggie.

                "It

would take love and courage to stand by and watch someone you care for die,

even if it wasn't forever. Then, to dig them up and stay with them until they

recovered enough to leave one country for another. I do not pretend to know

this country from which you hale, but it must have offered some sort of refuge

to her, and whoever her companion was."

                Edward

was tapping his fingers on the floor. "No. It just couldn't be."

                Everyone

was looking at him.

                "Yes?"

asked Maggie quietly.

                "Oh,

nothing. It's impossible."

                She

pinched his nose. "Look around you. We are all impossible, yet here we are. I

doubt you'll have anything to add to make this any more surreal than it already

is."

                "I'm

not sure about that. I have a guess who your grandfather might have been."

                "Do

tell!"

                He

stood up and shoved her to the side, clicking away on the keyboard. Finding

what he wanted, he pulled up the webpage. Maggie looked over his shoulder.

"You're kidding, right?"

                But Leonardo

was reading the information on the page. He had picked up the English language

fairly well over the past few days, thanks to borrowing the rings. He scanned

the description and turned to Maggie. "No, I think this has possibilities.

Look, they tried to kill him by any number of means without success."

                "Yes,

but he eventually died, see!" She pointed to the date; December 30, 1916.

                "Did

he? Who is to say? Maybe he let them think he was dead. To kill someone that

looks like you and substitute their body for yours is an old, old trick."

                "So you

think that my grandfather was Grigori Rasputin?"

                Leonardo

really knew very little about the tsars and this time period. "It seems logical

to assume for the moment that your grandmother is the tsar's daughter, and that

her lover and husband was this Rasputin fellow. And according to this, he had

the gift of prophecy. He could see into the future. And it seems to me that you

have a knack for knowing things ahead of time. This is very curious indeed."

                Maggie

was panting, and it looked very undignified in her human form. But she was

obviously under stress right now. "But Rasputin was crazy!"

                "Crazy?"

asked the master. "What is crazy to one man is brilliance to another. I will

need to read up on this family, and then see what I can find out about this Rasputin

person. But it looks to me like you will be going to Russia after all."

                Edward

wasn't so sure. "We can't get back to the States, much less head into Russia.

We would have to go home, apply for passports, and then fly to Russia from

there. It'll take weeks, months even."

                Maggie

bit him. "Shut up. I've already got it covered."

                "How!"

he yelled, rubbing his wound.

                "The pope

still owes me a favor. And I think I know what it's going to be. We got flown

in here on a papal jet, and I think we'll fly out the same way."

                "And

you think he's going to support you why?"

                "Because

he's a good man, and he's a little curious about all this too. I'm still glad

we didn't tell him he has the blood in him though. I don't think he was ready

for that news just yet."

                "But

Mags, where will we go in Russia?"

                "I

don't know yet. But if I have this foresight you think that I do, I believe

that I'll figure it out once we get there. Unless you're not coming, that is."

                He

sighed. What else could he do? "I'm in. But what are we going to do about the

others?"

                She

smiled. "Oh, they'll just be part of the favor I'm owed, so I think I got that

covered too!"