Chapter 10

The dark streets of London had become familiar to Tristan over the years.

He’d worked in much the same position beside Regulus as he did Nye, and the city held a long-lost nostalgia when it came to his days as a squire for the Knights Templar. Of course, it was much changed, the players in his life long dead and buried, but the memories remain, clinging to the land like some kind of spiritual residue.

Arrow, or Aya as she was known, had told him that once. The raven-haired woman who was unable to trick the human knight into thinking she was a man like the rest of their unit on the long road to Istanbul. Lady Arrow. The name had stuck long after she’d disappeared from his life. She was the one who’d taught him all he knew about being a vampire and witch hunter. She’d never returned his love, and that was a part of himself he’d only come to terms with recently. A thousand years was a long time dead.

Turning his attention to the modern streets around him, he kept his senses sharp as he searched for the calling cards that told him the Unhallowed were lurking.

The breeze picked up the closer he ventured toward the Thames and with it, the wind brought a telltale scent.

Turning his head, Tristan breathed deeply. This time, he got a good whiff of the stench and screwed up his nose. It wasn’t just rotting flesh he detected because it all smelt the same. No, it had a definite tang that told him it was something more. He remembered it from the other night when that creature had forced its way into the mansion.

Altering his course down the side alley, he kept his senses alert and eyes sharp. They were at a disadvantage considering they knew next to nothing about the witches, and any clue was worth its weight in metaphoric gold right now, so Tristan followed his nose.

There was no way of telling what the symbol on the second corpse was for or if they had in fact stopped the spell from playing out. As Nye had commanded, Reed had burned the body into ash and tipped what was left into the Thames. It was quite possible they’d thwarted the Unhallowed this time. This time, because there was no doubt there would be a third attempt and a fourth and fifth…

Then there was the fact that Nye had lost control and bitten Isobel. If anything, he’d seen it coming, but there was no telling Nye. The spy had reminded Tristan of his position many times already. Whatever advice he had about Isobel wasn’t wanted, and when it came to vampire-human relationships, he didn’t want to get involved in the inevitable fallout.

The problem was he genuinely liked Isobel. She was strong, independent, and didn’t take any nonsense from Nye. Perhaps in another lifetime, they would have been good for one another. Who knew.

Turning down another side alley, he caught the scent again—only this time, stronger.

An unseen force slammed into his stomach, and he stumbled. Then he was moved back against the wall, his head cracking against the brick. Realizing he’d stepped into a witch’s web of wards, he tried to twist out of the way, but his movements were becoming more sluggish as he struggled. His body was sucked to the ground like he was being swallowed whole by quicksand, and he fell flat onto his back. He stared up at the sky, unable to move, no matter how hard he tried to struggle.

A figure appeared over him, haloed in the light of the moon that hung over their position. Narrowing his eyes, he realized it was a woman. The witch who’d planted the trap he’s stupidly walked right into.

“Tristan na Tri Tor,” she said, standing over him, his eye drawn to the dagger in her hand that was glinting in the moonlight.

So it appeared he was next on the list. Lucky number three.

He looked the woman over regarding her long, curly, brown hair and deceitful eyes and saw darkness inside her soul. He’d been walking the earth a very long time and much of that was spent beside the hybrid Aya, the infamous Witch Hunter, tracking down and putting an end to evil. Tristan knew a great deal about the way witches operated and the magic that corrupted them. This woman…she reeked with the stench of death.

“It’s too bad,” she purred, her hands pulling at his jumper. “You’re cute, but you’re positioned right where I need you to be—the right hand of my murderer. Yes, you’ll do just fine.”

“You’re Eleanor,” he said as the tip of her knife trailed along his stomach.

“The word dead has such a finality about it,” she replied, blowing him a kiss. “Nothing truly dies, Tristan, least of all an Unhallowed witch.”

She didn’t deny her identity, but he supposed she was confident he was done for. While he still drew breath, there was always hope.

“Why now?” he asked, trying to move against the invisible bonds that held him. “Four hundred years is a long time to wait in the shadows.”

She smiled. “All good things take time.”

“Have you been alive all this time?” He didn’t understand how she could be here. Not even Aya had known of a spell that could prolong a witch’s life beyond a hundred or so years.

“You know so much yet understand so little,” Eleanor replied, straddling his prone body. Holding the knife in two hands, she drove the tip into his skin, pain beginning to burn his flesh. He could feel the power traveling from her, through the steel, and into him.

He would not end up like the corpses that had been appearing around the city. He wouldn’t allow her to turn him into a reanimated sack of rotting flesh sent to tear his friends apart. Not after all of the things he’d seen in this world. He couldn’t become a part of the feral darkness that had taken him all those long years ago. There was no way in hell.

He felt her knife carving into the flesh of his chest, the symbol coming closer to completion, and he pushed against her with all eleven hundred years of his accumulated strength.

Her eyes widened in surprise as he broke free of her hold, and suddenly, he was shoving her aside. Baring his fangs, he dove onto her and tore into her neck. Eleanor screamed as the knife clattered to the cobblestones, the sound hardly registering as her blood began to burn his mouth and throat rather than fill him with the strength he needed to take her out.

Letting her go, he clutched his neck, spitting blood all over the ground. It was eating through his flesh like acid…

Eleanor began to laugh hysterically as she lay flat on her back. “Tastes nice, doesn’t it?”

Tristan heaved, throwing up the contents of his stomach. What in the world was happening?

Slowly, the witch sat up, her expression falling from laughter into darkness. He felt the crackle of static charging the air, and he knew he had to do something or bear the brunt of the spell the witch was muttering under her breath.

His throat burned, his stomach hissing and spitting inside of him as her blood ate away at his flesh, and Tristan knew he couldn’t fight her. Not alone and not without a witch to help him. The only thing he could do if he wanted to get out of this and warn Nye was to run.

Stumbling to his feet, he slammed against the wall, his balance thrown off. Eleanor’s hands rose as the spell began to crescendo, and he ran.

Emerging onto the street, he heard her enraged cry behind him and the sound of running feet as she attempted pursuit. No doubt, she’d hoped the poison that was her blood would subdue him long enough to complete her ritual. Not tonight.

Tristan turned and ran, not stopping until he burst through the front door of the mansion. Climbing the stairs, he shoved into the study and fell to his knees as Nye rose to his feet.

“What the hell happened to you?” he asked, looking over the knight.

His chest heaving as his strength failed, Tristan pawed at his jumper and realized it was covered in blood and whatever he’d thrown up. Holes appeared in places Eleanor’s blood had soaked through, eating away the fabric like it had his throat.

“The Unhallowed,” he wheezed.

Nye knelt before him, his face coming into focus. “Are you all right?”

He nodded and curled his hand around his throat. “Her blood was like acid.”

“What’s going on?”

Tristan froze at the sound of Isobel’s voice at the door, and he stared up at her. He couldn’t take his eyes off the human girl.

“Isobel,” Nye said, frowning at Tristan’s reaction. “Go to the kitchen and get some blood from the fridge.”

She stared at the knight a moment longer, then nodded. “Sure.”

When she was gone, he managed to pull his gaze away. “I got away,” he said. “She lured me into a trap.”

“She?” Nye asked. “Did she say who she was? Were there others?”

He swallowed hard. “Yes. There are others…”

Isobel appeared again, and he hesitated as Nye took the blood bags from her trembling fingers. She was a good person. She wanted to help them so desperately but was helpless. Maybe there was a way she could help…

Nye handed him the blood and helped him into the armchair. Ripping off the tab at the top of the first bag, he sucked greedily, the blood soothing the razor blades in his throat and stomach.

“Will he be okay?” Isobel asked Nye, watching as the knight devoured the blood without a care for what he looked like.

“He will,” the spy replied. “Go back to your room.”

Isobel hesitated and then slowly backed out of the study, leaving the two vampires alone.

Tristan drank the last of the blood, the burning sensation finally subsiding to a simmer that was already beginning to fade as his body healed itself.

“You want to tell me what happened?”

He glanced at Nye and nodded. “Eleanor.”

Nye visibly stiffened. “What?”

“She’s alive,” he replied. “I don’t know how, but she attacked me. Held me down and tried to turn me into one of her corpses.”

“Eleanor is responsible for the…” Nye let his head fall into his hands. “How is this possible?”

“I don’t think she’s workin’ alone,” Tristan went on. “She seemed to allude to others.”

“How is she alive?” Nye roared, tightening his hands into fists. “I cut off that bitch’s head four hundred years ago!”

“How the hell should I know? I saw her. She was flesh and blood…” His fingers rose to touch his throat. “I bit her… Her blood was like acid.”

“A bitch with acid in her veins,” Nye drawled. “Sounds about right. What did she want? To kill you?”

“I don’t know. She didn’t get very far before I got away.” He pulled up his jumper, but his skin had healed. “She was carvin’ somethin’ but it’s gone now.”

“Good. Last thing we need is you turning into a walking corpse.”

“There’s somethin’ in this house they want desperately,” he said, glancing at Nye.

“I think I already get that, but thanks for the refresher.”

Tristan’s mind was foggy, details of his encounter with Eleanor scrambled in his mind. “I don’t think they just want to kill you…”

Nye rolled his eyes. “No, they want to torture me for their own amusement before they rip me apart.”

“I think you should summon Gabby,” Tristan said. “This is outside of my knowledge…”

“After a week and half?” Nye scoffed. “No. I can handle this on my own. Eleanor is my problem.”

“Her blood was acid, Nye. I don’t think she’s a witch anymore.”

“Not a witch?” he replied, his eyebrows rising. “Then what is she?”

Tristan shook his head slowly, his senses starting to return. “I don’t know, but we need to find out. I’m a thousand years old, so she shouldn’t have been able to subdue me as easily as she did.”

“Maybe you have a point.” Nye rose to his feet and began pacing in front of the fireplace. On his second turn, he glanced at Tristan.

“Call her, Nye.” The spy waved him off, and he shrugged. “It’s your funeral.”

“You should go get some rest,” Nye said finally. “You look like shit.”

Rolling his eyes, he replied, “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

Knowing there was nothing else he could say to sway him, Tristan stood and shuffled toward the door. Let him make his own mistakes. There was only so much he could do to convince him. Maybe Isobel could sway him.

As he returned to his room on the other side of the mansion, he made a mental note to talk to her when he felt better.

When Tristan was long gone, Nye picked up his phone and opened the contacts.

The knight was right. Seeing him on the floor like that, totally spent from a five-minute encounter with Eleanor, had shaken him…and he hadn’t been the one to feel the tip of her blade this time.

Eleanor was alive. How was the even possible? What power could bring back a headless corpse? If what Tristan had seen was real, then the reflection he’d seen in the off-license the night before was real. She’d been there, watching his every move and then some.

Breathing deeply, he could still smell the lingering scent of Isobel in the room. Her appearance moments before was the first he’d seen of her since he’d lost control and… Her blood had been so sweet and pure. Better than any he’d tasted in a very long time. Just the thought of it had his teeth aching, threatening to grow into the fangs that could rip into her flesh.

Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath and closed off all his senses but the one he needed the most. Sucking up his pride, he took Tristan’s advice.

Pressing his thumb on the screen where Gabby’s name was displayed, he listened as it began to ring and waited until the call connected.

She answered after the fifth tone.

“It’s been a week and a half, Nye. You haven’t burned all your bridges already, have you?”

“No, don’t be ridiculous,” he drawled. “And hello to you, too.”

“What is it? I’ve been having a wonderful break from vampire drama. It’s refreshing not having to use my powers to battle ancient curses and creatures, you know.”

“Good for you.”

“Spit it out. I haven’t got all night.”

“We’ve got a problem,” he said. “A big one.”

There was pause on the other end, and then Gabby asked, “What kind of problem?”

“Someone broke a window. And there’s a painting hanging in the foyer that’s worth ten million pounds.”

“Quit it, Nye. I expect this kind of runaround from Zac, not you. Just say what you mean or hang up and leave me alone.”

“A coven of witches called the Unhallowed have been planting spells all over the city and murdering vampires. They tried to kill Tristan tonight.”

“Tristan? But he’s… Is he okay?”

“Yes, he will be, but he said it was close.”

“Hell… I’m sorry, Nye. I…”

“Have you heard of them before?” he asked, turning the conversation back to their current problem.

“The Unhallowed? Never heard of them, but there are a lot of covens out there. Some go back to near the beginning of our kind, to those that are first generation. Even covens that span all elemental affinities. There’s no way that any one person could follow them all. If things went to plan like they were supposed to, then there was only ever going to be five covens. Now there are thousands… These Unhallowed witches could have been flying under the radar for a long time.”

“It doesn’t matter if you’ve heard of them or not,” he shot back, not needing the history lesson. “It’s what they’re doing now that’s a thorn in my side.”

“Go on…”

He took a deep breath and told her the whole convoluted story, minus the part where Isobel was trapped inside the mansion and the lines had become blurry as hell. Alex would love that, and if he wasn’t careful, Gabby was one breath away from telling the newborn vampire all about it.

“I really need your help, Gabby,” he said, laying it all out there. “I don’t know what else to do.”

“Nye Saer putting his city before his pride,” the witch replied. “Perhaps we made the right decision, after all.”

“Are you going to help or not?” he asked, rolling his eyes.

“It’s my house, and London was Regulus’s city,” she came back with, her voice wavering slightly as she uttered her dead love’s name. “It’s my home, too. My home that I allow you to live in and direct your kingdom from. I’m not going to let some crazyass witch with a vendetta against her ex-boyfriend stuff it all up.”

Nye’s lips curved into a smile as some of the tension left his shoulders. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then?”

“I’ll be on the next flight out.”