Tzadkiel stepped into the kitchen. Though he knew he should announce himself, he couldn’t help staring. In the comfort of his own home, the hunter hadn’t donned his sunglasses. Exposed, the place where his eyes should have been was comprised of scarred and sunken skin. Bruises underneath spoke of languid dissipation and opium dens, while vacant skin-covered sockets—their ruined canvas a lacy network of puckered ridges—were a haunting reminder of the damaged boy that did nothing to diminish the beauty of the man.
“Who the fuck’re you?” The snarled inquiry came from a woman Tzadkiel had barely noticed in the study of his quarry.
“I am Tzadkiel.” Stepping forward, he extended his hand.
Full mouth set in a firm line, pointed chin jutted, the woman eyed him from under a sweep of black hair. Ignoring Tzadkiel’s hand, she cast a sideways glance at Benjamin. “This the guy from last night?”
Lowering—but not relinquishing—a wicked-looking butcher knife, Benjamin nodded, his pale skin flaming scarlet.
“Nyx,” the woman said, assessing him as she took his proffered hand.
Tzadkiel inhaled deeply and caught her scent—fresh air layered with the musky tang of herbs, the silky warmth of paraffin, and the uniquely metallic scent of moonlight. A silver cuff on her right wrist, stamped with Celtic symbols he didn’t immediately recognize, fairly vibrated with power. Yes. The woman was a witch, but the moonlight told him another story. She was part fae. He filed the detail away for later study.
“A pleasure.” Tzadkiel stepped back from the witch at the first possible moment.
His attention shifted inexorably to Benjamin, who faced him with a mixture of wonder and wary curiosity. The expression painted the hunter’s scarred-yet-beautiful face with a sublime chiaroscuro of youthful vulnerability. If Tzadkiel had still possessed fangs, they would have elongated with a painful snap.
Benjamin cleared his throat, depositing the knife in an over-full dish drainer, and slouched against the counter with his arms folded. “What are you doing here?”
Good question. After leaving the hunter last night he had cursed himself for not luring the man to the mora’s stronghold. He’d damned himself for fair play, and for being too much of a coward to enter this very house when he’d had the chance. Now he’d be forced to deal with two enemies instead of one.
“I’ve come to properly introduce myself,” Tzadkiel said, setting in motion the plan he’d concocted.
Benjamin straightened, his upright posture pushing the twin barbells of his nipple jewelry against the white cotton of his undershirt. Tzadkiel tore his gaze from the lurid display. Now was not the time to indulge his weakness for pretty men.
“Last evening didn’t seem the time…” Tzadkiel began, then shook his head and started again. “I know what you did on the Common.” The truth would give him an emotional advantage that he could use in setting the stage for his lies. “I know what you are.”
Benjamin moved in front of Nyx, shielding her from Tzadkiel, his motion so smooth he appeared more graceful boxer than a man whose lack of sight should have put him at a disadvantage.
“I am a hunter.” Tzadkiel pretended not to notice Benjamin’s obvious maneuver. “Like you.”
Behind Benjamin, Nyx gasped.
Tzadkiel almost congratulated himself, until, in the hallway, the grandfather clock chimed the quarter hour. Aged springs warped the tune, catapulting Tzadkiel into the past. Every hair on his arms stood on end. He’d heard that clock toll every fifteen minutes for thirty-six of the longest hours of his life, while enduring torture that had been a part of his too-frequent nightmares ever since. Curling his hands into fists, he forced himself to swallow down a surge of bile that accompanied an almost paralyzing mixture of anger and fear.
Benjamin thrust out his jaw, as he seemed to struggle with, and triumph over, his own internal demons. “Bullshit.”
The challenge focused Tzadkiel’s well-honed survival instinct. The grandfather clock ceased to exist, as did the scent of the dank basement he hadn’t been able to expunge from his nose from the moment he’d entered the house.
“Oh. I assure you. I am every bit the hunter you are.” A rueful smile tightened facial muscles that had seen too little use over the past decades.
Benjamin shifted his weight from one foot to the other, belying his pretense at confidence. “I’ve always known I’m the only hunter left.”
What the man said was all too true. Benjamin’s family—and now Benjamin himself—had been the last determined enemies of Tzadkiel’s kind. Just as Tzadkiel’s mora was all that remained of his own.
“Did you think none of us were left behind in the old country?” Tzadkiel forced an even brighter smile.
Benjamin’s mouth tightened. The witch laid a hand on his shoulder, but the hunter shrugged her off with an angry jerk.
“Prove it.” Posture defensive, chin lifted, Benjamin enunciated his challenge.
Tzadkiel couldn’t help admiring Benjamin’s self-preservation instinct, however little good it would do him in the end.
“Tell me,” Tzadkiel began, praying he guessed correctly, “how would I have seen you deal the death blow with the sword secreted in your cane—how would I have even known who or what you were fighting—if your lineage were not my own?”
Benjamin’s chin notched another fraction, the gesture accompanying his reply. “You could be a vampire, immune to Nyx’s obfuscation spell. Or a witch.”
Nyx circled around to the door, blocking Tzadkiel’s exit. “He’s not a witch.”
Tzadkiel’s vision tunneled, his system preparing him to fight. He shifted to keep both adversaries in his sight.
“Why would I not have killed you last evening when you so kindly invited me inside your home, and were incapacitated by alcohol?” Cocking his head, he feigned bemusement. “When you were alone?”
“Who knows why vampires do what they do?” Benjamin curled his fingers around the counter’s edge. “They’re irrational, bloodthirsty monsters.”
Tzadkiel, who was feeling nothing if not bloodthirsty, drew back his lips to display fangless gums.
Nyx examined the display of what Tzadkiel knew to be straight, even, and perfectly benign teeth with a jaundiced eye. There would be no telltale bulge where his fangs had once been and the gums had healed over. Not anymore.
“No fangs,” she asserted.
Outside, muffled footsteps neared—someone approached the house. A hinge squeaked at the front door, then a fluttering thump said the mail had been delivered—a little late, perhaps because of the holidays or the bad weather. Benjamin’s fingers twitched as he apparently registered, then dismissed, the familiar sound.
“I know what bothered me about you last night.” Benjamin indicated Tzadkiel with a jerk of his chin. “If you’re a hunter, then you have magic I should be able to detect. I saw your aura when you walked into the bar. You’re hiding it from me now. How?”
Hoofbeats couldn’t have sounded louder than the momentary galloping in Tzadkiel’s chest. So, Benjamin had seen him after all. There had been a moment when Tzadkiel had reached the top of the stairs and had seen Benjamin slouching indolently in the velvet and leather wingback chair. Long legs sprawled open, sunglasses reflecting the sparkle of the somewhat gritty bar’s ironic chandeliers, the hunter had looked half pirate and half king of his chosen realm. Tzadkiel’s control had slipped.
“You can’t obscure your own?” Tzadkiel asked, not knowing what he’d say until the words left his mouth.
Of course the hunter couldn’t hide his aura. Only Tzadkiel’s blood-born family had developed that skill—a necessary defense against Benjamin’s kind. But would Benjamin, with his incomplete training, know this?
“I—” Clearly not expecting the counter-question, Benjamin turned his attention briefly toward Nyx. “Should I be able to?”
Nyx shrugged. Apparently, the hunter could detect the witch’s aura as well as Tzadkiel’s own. It made sense when Tzadkiel considered that perhaps all supernaturally gifted creatures gave off a particular wavelength of etheric energy a hunter’s senses might detect. He’d always thought the sixth sense all hunters possessed homed in only on their prey.
“I had assumed all hunters could—at least my parents taught me as much,” Tzadkiel said, rushing to fill the gap in Benjamin’s knowledge—and further the deception. “We will have to compare notes when this is over. Perhaps share a few new skills.” He continued, addressing Benjamin’s original question obliquely with, “Your friend can see me. She knows I’m not a…a vampire.”
Benjamin turned his head toward Nyx. “Can you?”
Tzadkiel repressed a small smile, knowing what she would see when she used her powers to scan him. A War King’s presence was nothing like others of his mora.
Arms folded across her chest, Nyx swept Tzadkiel with her gaze. She had banked her witch fire some time ago, whether deliberately or out of exhaustion of her powers, Tzadkiel couldn’t tell. “It’s deep purple. Not like the vamps’ blue, or that green from last night.”
“Green?” Tzadkiel asked, taken aback, then quickly clamped his mouth shut.
Benjamin canted his head in seeming consideration. Tzadkiel almost felt him straining to see an outline or glimmer, anything that might help him puzzle out the stranger who stood in his kitchen. Under the fluorescent light, the hunter’s skin had taken on a yellow cast that couldn’t disguise the excitement that pinked his cheeks. Heat emanated from him in shocking disproportion to the chill in the air, making Tzadkiel all too aware that a very real answer to his hunger stood before him.
“If you’re not an enemy, then why are you hiding from me?” Benjamin asked.
“I always cloak myself when I know the Sons of Pollux are near.” Tzadkiel deliberately dropped in his mora’s proper name, rather than using the vernacular vampire of which Benjamin seemed overfond. “I have no desire to let them know what or who I am.”
“Where do you come from?” Benjamin asked, continuing his inquisition.
“We discussed this last evening. Greece.” At least that much was the truth, though he hadn’t been to his homeland for centuries.
The hunter’s vigilance remained unwavering. “Why are you here?”
Tzadkiel frowned. The question, even to him, was ridiculous. “To kill vampires, of course.”
“But why now?” Benjamin pressed.
Tzadkiel resisted the urge to expel a harried breath. He’d spun enough lies now to bury himself in a minotaur-sized pile of manure. Facing down an invading legion had never seemed as difficult as this. He really should have simply taken the hunter outright last night when he’d had the opportunity.
“A coup among your local…magical factions…” He forced himself not to glance to Nyx. “Has weakened the Sons of Pollux to the point we believe their threat can be permanently reduced.” The words tasted sour in his mouth, but he forced himself to speak them. “Or eradicated altogether. Just as we’ve managed in my own country.”
The hunter’s brows rose precipitously. “Is this why they’re feeding in the open now? Desperation?”
“Feeding in the open?” Shock compelled Tzadkiel to repeat the information.
Benjamin’s attention brushed Tzadkiel’s skin like a palpable touch. “We were on the Common last night following up on an eyewitness account when that vamp attacked us.”
“I had not heard…” At least in this Tzadkiel could tell the truth. “That is concerning.”
While the Sons of Pollux were known to drink from the vein, they were not beasts. They drank from willing acolytes, taking only what they needed to sustain their magic, never leaving a husk behind unless forced to desperate measures. All those who offered themselves were given the opportunity to attain immortality. The rest lived out their days in sensual comfort within the mora. Tzadkiel himself had been mad with hunger when the indigent had happened upon him in his subterranean lair, and that had been the only reason for the man’s death. Shame and regret followed in memory’s wake.
“What’s your plan?” The witch broke into Tzadkiel’s troubled musings.
“Sorry?” Tzadkiel asked, not understanding.
“Your plan.” She leaned back. “You didn’t come all the way from Greece without one, did you?”
Benjamin snorted, his repressed laughter an indication of a shared joke between him and the witch.
“When my inquiries went unanswered, I assumed there were no longer any hunters in the area. I came to explore the situation, and then planned to contact my family.”
The witch’s lips thinned. She appeared to know he hadn’t revealed the entire truth, or perhaps had lied outright. She opened her mouth to speak, but Benjamin cut her off.
“If you are who you say you are, then you shouldn’t have anything to fear from me or from Nyx.” The hunter flipped a palm upward and shrugged. “So show yourself. I promise there aren’t any vampires here.”
Tzadkiel repressed a curse. Revealing himself to the hunter in this house, where they’d last met as enemies, seemed imprudent, to say the least. Surely, the man would recognize him. Yet, if Tzadkiel wanted Benjamin to trust him, it was the only thing he could do.
Nodding sharply, Tzadkiel cast his lot with the Fates. “As you wish.”
One deep breath, and then another, expanded Tzadkiel’s lungs, and he let go of the stranglehold he kept on his aura. With each inhale, his world enlarged, until the bounds of his power overflowed the dam he’d constructed. It was as if he stepped out from behind a wall. Colors grew brighter, sounds sharper—the ticking of that blasted clock and the thrum of a diesel engine down Pinckney Street rattled the cage of his composure. Energy buzzed at his fingertips, his extremities awakening as his limbs warmed. The last of his power released, filling him. When no cry of recognition came, he blinked his eyes open.
Ignoring Tzadkiel completely, Benjamin spun in seeming wonder, mouth gaping. “Holy fuck.”
“What’s going on?” the witch asked. “What do you see?”
Tzadkiel frowned as the hunter ignored them both and haltingly explored the room.
“Everything,” Benjamin breathed. “I see everything clearly.” He finally turned to Tzadkiel, but just as quickly averted his face. “Except you.”
It was Tzadkiel’s turn to be dumbfounded. Though the place where Benjamin’s eyes had been remained as empty as ever, apparently the hunter’s etheric sight detected anything bathed in the glow of Tzadkiel’s aura. Nyx, who had been watching the proceedings with wary interest, pushed away from the door. For more than a few minutes, she and Tzadkiel watched as Benjamin examined object after object with giddy wonder lighting his face.
“Amazing,” Benjamin breathed, laughing. “It’s like someone turned on the lights, except they’re purple and a bit foggy.”
“I agree,” Tzadkiel murmured dryly. “Amazing.”
Benjamin glanced over his shoulder, then quickly away again, almost as if direct perusal of Tzadkiel’s person pained his hunter’s sight.
“Do you have any lingering doubts?” Tzadkiel forced the question, though he was pretty sure he wouldn’t like the answer.
“Many,” Nyx said warily.
Tzadkiel met the witch’s gaze. Reflected in her eyes, he saw himself as she did, surrounded by light, reminiscent of the sun’s corona billowing in a solar wind. He had a horrible moment of wondering if she knew who and what he was.
“We’re going to the Common,” Benjamin announced, breaking what was promising to be a gunfighter-style standoff between Tzadkiel and the witch.
“What?”
“I beg your pardon?”
Tzadkiel and Nyx pinned the hunter with their attention.
“You said there was Greek lettering on the plaque in the bandstand,” Benjamin said, fairly vibrating with excitement. “I bet Tzadkiel could read it.”
Tzadkiel didn’t have to force his surprise. “Is the plaque significant to you?”
Of course, he knew Benjamin spoke of the door to the mora’s secret network of tunnels and rooms—their effective stronghold—that ran beneath Boston Common and to points east and south in the city. But how had the hunter come across its bespelled entrance, and how much had he guessed? Though Tzadkiel shuddered at the thought, if the hunter could see the door might it be possible for him to open it as well?
“I think it’s the entrance to some vampire bolt-hole,” Benjamin said.
Tzadkiel’s lip curled at the comparison of his ancestral home to that of an animal den, but he quickly masked his expression with one of feigned surprise. This development could actually be very, very good for him. If the hunter and witch got him into the stronghold—and he could separate the friends—then he might be able to carry out his plan more quickly than he’d anticipated. Dispatch Benjamin, drink his blood, and break whatever hold the coven had on the Common. If only he knew the source of that hold.
“Why would you trust him?” Nyx jerked her head toward Tzadkiel.
“Oh, I don’t.” Benjamin’s lips thinned, but his face still shone with anticipation. “But he can help us, I think, in case we’re attacked again. That is if he is who he says he is.” Then the hunter nodded, as if in agreement with the outcome of some internal debate. “And we can keep an eye on him at the same time.”
Benjamin was already out the kitchen door, the oak panel swinging behind him. Yes, the hunter was leading them precisely to where Tzadkiel had wanted to go. He should have felt triumphant, but instead he felt as if the situation had spiraled out of his control.
“Come on.” Benjamin stuck his head back in the door. “Nyx, drop Akito a text. See if he can leave work early and meet us at the bandstand.”
The witch gave Tzadkiel a look as if to say, This is your fault.
What can I do? Tzadkiel silently answered, a shrug accompanying his moue. He’s your friend.
They tromped into the front hall, following Benjamin, who sat on the stairs tugging on his boots.
“Don’t you think you’re going off half-cocked, Benji?” The witch looped a rainbow-hued scarf around her neck as she spoke. Likely she knew the futility of attempting to stop the hunter in his present mission.
Benjamin straightened and combed his fingers roughly through his mane. “I have a plan. I’ve had one for years, in case we found their nest, and that’s what I think this is.”
“Oh?” Nyx asked.
Tzadkiel’s raised brows mirrored the witch’s curious expression, he was sure. Benjamin’s answering grin was evil incarnate, all canines and wolfish satisfaction.
“We’re going to scout for structural weaknesses. Then I’m going to come back with explosives to blow the place sky high. I don’t care if there’s a crater in Boston Common when I’m finished.” Benjamin lifted his backpack suggestively, as if it might already contain the necessary accoutrements of destruction. Hair storm-tossed, expression wild, he rounded on Tzadkiel. “Let’s go.”
Tzadkiel’s fingers curled in sudden, claw-like rigor mortis. Visions of the hunter strung up in the mora’s central chamber, stripped of his clothes, dying slowly of a thousand salt-scourged knife wounds, acted as a balm to his temper. He managed to take in a calming breath.
“Indeed, hunter.” Lips pulled back into an expression that felt more akin to a death grimace than a smile, Tzadkiel held the door open, and followed Benjamin into the night. “Nothing would please me more.”