Chapter 21

Dawn was lightening the horizon when Gabby finally parked the car in the mansion’s garage.

Pulling out her cell phone, she dialed Alex’s number, and he answered almost immediately.

“Gabby?” came his voice. “Where are you?”

“Alex,” she said, her hands trembling. “I need you to help me with Tristan. I’m in the garage.”

“What happened?” came his fevered reply.

“Tristan… He was compelled by Eleanor…”

“Are you… Is he…”

“He’ll be fine,” she said, glancing at his comatose body in the back seat. “But he’s currently unconscious…and I don’t have super strength. Truthfully, I’m beat.”

“Stay where you are,” he said. “I’m on my way down.”

When Alex appeared, she was surprised when he pulled her into his arms and hugged her tightly.

“Are you okay?” he asked. “Those were some epic skills you showed off tonight.”

“Yeah. I’m just tired, I guess. Is Nye awake yet?” she asked as Alex let her go so he could open the back door to retrieve Tristan.

“Not yet. Izzy is with him now. His chest is healing, but it’s weird…” He dragged the comatose vampire out and hauled him over his shoulder like a bag of potting mix. You could take the gardener out of the garden…

“What’s weird?”

“It should’ve healed by now,” Alex went on as they moved into the mansion. “The rune that crazy wraith sliced into him…Izzy’s worried.”

“They were using some pretty heavy magic,” Gabby said. “Dark stuff. It could just be taking time to work out of his system.”

“I hope so,” he grumbled. “My sister says she loves him. And I warned him if he hurt her again… I will kill him, Gabby. If he does anything to hurt a hair on Izzy’s head, I’ll rip his off.”

“I don’t doubt it,” she replied. “But save it as a last resort, huh?”

Alex didn’t complain further and carried the unconscious Tristan upstairs to the knight’s room with Gabby in tow. Looked like she’d have to pay Nye a visit too before she could finally fall into bed.

When she stepped into Tristan’s room, she raised an eyebrow at the scene before her. She hadn’t seen his room before, and she was certain no one ever had. It was sparsely furnished, the bed simple and the walls free of any adornment. The vampire was a strange one, loyal and devout to whatever cause he was fighting for. As Alex set him down on the bed, she wondered if all of this was an extension of his lingering humanity. From what she’d heard Tristan had spent most of his life marching across Europe and what were now Turkey and the Middle East on the Crusades. Which one, she wasn’t sure since there had been several.

“Can you do this now?” Alex asked as she sat beside the knight. “You look like you need a good sleep.”

“I have to do this now,” she replied. “If he wakes up and is still under Eleanor’s control, then we’d just have another mess to deal with. Besides, he’s a good guy. He doesn’t deserve to be used like this.”

He stood beside her and placed his hand on her shoulder. “What happened out there?”

“Lots of things. Tristan tried to attack me, so I must be close to figuring out the Unhallowed’s endgame.”

“He attacked you?”

“Give me some credit, Alex,” she said with a tired smile. “I did break his neck with a flick of the wrist.”

“Badass,” he said with a grin.

Shaking her head, she turned her attention to Tristan. Focusing her power, she delved into the vampire’s mind. Technically, he was dead, or in a really weird form of stasis, so she was able to unravel Eleanor’s compulsion with little to no effort on her part. If he had been conscious, he would’ve fought back at the intrusion, making it annoying as hell in her current condition.

Opening her eyes, she sighed, her body beginning to tremble as her power reached its ultimate limit.

“He should be okay, but he’ll need to be watched,” she declared, her bones aching something fierce. “We need to get one of Nye’s Six here.”

“Nye’s Six?” Alex asked.

“Reed,” she replied. “Get Reed and I’ll invite him in. Nye and Tristan seemed to trust the guy, and right now, we need help.” They were stretched thin when all of them were in commission, and now that Nye and Tristan were both down, she was it.

“I have Nye’s cell,” he said. “Izzy found it in her room before. I’ll arrange for this Reed guy to come as soon as he can.”

“Thanks.”

“You sure you’re okay?”

She nodded and pushed to her feet. “I’ve been through worse. An extra hour on my feet won’t hurt me.”

Leaving Alex to arrange Reed’s arrival, she shuffled through the mansion to Isobel’s room. Knowing her friend, she would’ve commanded her brother to take the vampire there. It’s what she would’ve done if it were Regulus. A familiar place where she could protect the man she loved.

As she hauled herself up the stairs to the other wing of the house, she felt a pang of longing for the dead Roman. How she wished he were here. If anyone knew what to do with unabashed certainty, it was Regulus, but all Gabby had right now was the hope that some of his ruthlessness had rubbed off on her. She’d need it in the final showdown with the Unhallowed.

Eleanor was going down, one way or another.

Isobel sat on her bed with Nye’s hand firmly wedged in hers.

She studied the vampire’s face while he lay dead, healing from his self-inflicted stab wound to the heart. He was still and serene, his hand icy in hers. She hadn’t realized exactly how cold his body was compared to hers. They’d touched before, kissed even, but she’d been too wrapped up in her feelings to take note.

She memorized each line of his face, including his scar, and started to become concerned with how long he’d been out. It’d been several hours since they’d returned from the stone circle, and while Nye’s chest had almost healed, he was still some place faraway.

“Hey.”

She glanced up at the sound of Gabby’s voice. “You’re back!”

“How is he?” the witch asked, venturing into the room.

“Still out,” she replied. “I’m beginning to worry…”

Gabby nodded and pulled down the blanket Isobel had placed over Nye. For a long moment, the witch studied the mark on his chest, her fingers probing the angry-looking skin.

“Why isn’t it going away?” Isobel asked after a moment.

“I’m not sure. There was some heavy-duty power flowing through him… That had to have some consequences.”

“It’s just slowed his healing, right?”

Her friend shrugged. “It’s possible. All we can do right now is wait.”

“He stabbed himself in the heart,” she said. “How can he come back from that?”

“Only a stake can kill him,” Gabby explained. “Wood or silver. The dagger was made out of steel, and he knew the right place to strike so his body could repair itself. If he were gone…”

“If he were gone?”

“His body would desiccate.”

She’d seen it before when her brother killed Aed. Of course, Nye was still here.

“Does it usually take this long?” she asked.

Gabby shrugged. “I suppose a hole in a heart is a little more complicated than most mortal wounds. All we can do is wait.”

Isobel glanced at Nye and tightened her grip on his hand, willing him to wake while her mind went back to the events of the night. Everything had happened so fast…

She’d stood right behind Gabby as the witch ripped the earth apart around them. Full-on tore it to shreds and put them into the eye of a tornado…but then there were the Unhallowed. She’d been powerless in that moment, watching the six women flicker from solid human form into storm clouds of their own. The things she’d seen in the past few months defied everything that was logical. Then there was the man who lay before her, dead but not… Four hundred years and just as many lifetimes under his belt, and here she was, a baby compared to his understanding of the world.

“What were they?” she asked, shoving away her doubts. “Those women? I know you said they’re wraiths, but… They looked human one second, then…”

“Wraiths are nothing like I’ve ever seen, either,” Gabby replied. “And I’ve seen some crazy shit. Neither living nor dead, they assume human forms and feed off the power of the ley lines to prolong their lives. Without it, their bodies decay and their souls are lost in a supernatural limbo for eternity.”

“The ley lines under the stone circle? That’s why they needed them so bad?”

The witch nodded. “Now that I’ve seen and felt what they can do, I’m fairly certain they move around, and as one line is depleted, they find another so the one they fed off can grow again. A constant push and pull with the other side.”

“What a life,” she drawled. “Clinging to life like a leech.”

“I don’t think the stone circle was the Keeping Place,” Gabby said, lost in thought.

“But the map…” Isobel began to argue.

“Just led us to their ritual.”

“Then what has this Keeping Place got to do with Nye?”

Gabby shrugged. “Whatever is in the Keeping Place might be something that will give the Unhallowed enough power to not have to use the ley lines anymore. An unlimited power source, maybe… It’s just a guess, but the memories the earth showed me pointed toward something they were looking for.” She frowned, remembering the matriarch’s words. “She said Eleanor would bear the fruit of their salvation.”

“That doesn’t sound whacked at all,” Izzy drawled.

“What do you think?” Gabby asked.

“Me?” Her eyes widened. Someone was asking her what she thought? Finally!

The witch shrugged. “Any clue is a good clue.”

“Well,” she said, glancing at Nye, whose eyes were still closed. “Bearing fruit is usually a fertility reference in ancient text. They could be growing something, or…”

“A baby?” Gabby asked, curling her nose. “A wraith baby? Impossible.”

“Why was Eleanor so desperate for Nye to be a part of finding this Keeping Place? Was it just revenge, or do you think…”

“The only thing more absurd than a wraith baby is a vampire one.”

“Then maybe something about Nye is part of a map or key?” she threw out, hoping something was right.

“We could be speculating all day,” Gabby replied with a rather large yawn. “Let’s wait for Nye to recover first. He might know more seeing as he had a chance to talk to Eleanor. He knew he had to sever himself from the ley line, which was why he…” She gestured to the dead vampire.

Isobel scowled and turned back to Nye, taking his hand once more. She hated the fact Eleanor had her claws in him at all. Jealousy and anger rose inside her, and for the first time, she said what she was feeling about the vampire who’d stolen her heart. Stolen it without even trying, she might add. “Despite everything that’s happened, the things he’s done, who he is, and what he is, I love him. I love Nye.”

“I know,” Gabby replied. “I know.”

“What a fickle thing the heart is,” she murmured.

“You’ll get your chance to tell him, Izzy,” her friend said. “Don’t doubt that.”

There was a soft knock on the door, and Alex appeared. “Gabby, Reed is here.”

The witch nodded and rose to her feet. “I’ll be right down.”

“Reed?” Isobel asked. “Anything to worry about?”

“Nope. Just one last thing to do before I get to sleep the day and night away,” she replied. “Tristan needs watching, and Nye trusts Reed, so in he comes.”

Once Gabby had left, Isobel turned back to Nye, casting Reed to the back of her mind. Another vampire in the mansion! If Nye trusted him, then she was content to follow suit and care for the one who mattered the most.

Nye still hadn’t stirred, but his skin had healed over entirely now, so she pulled the covers up over his chest to keep him warm…even though he probably didn’t need it. Yet another thing she wasn’t used to about his kind.

Curling up beside him, she closed her eyes, relieved he was back in the mansion—away from the wicked Unhallowed—and in her bed, right where she wanted him all along.