Tzadkiel kept himself and Benjamin to the better-lighted Boylston Street on Boston Common’s southern side. Snow hampered their forward progress some, but Benjamin walked with a surefooted gait given how much pain he must have been in. Tzadkiel supposed he shouldn’t have been surprised after the man’s performance in their underground clash.
Face upturned, Benjamin appeared focused on the tall buildings. “I can’t remember moving this fast outside of a fight.”
By fights of course Benjamin would mean the slaughtering of Tzadkiel’s mora.
“How many?” Tzadkiel asked, unable to stop himself.
“How many what?” Benjamin lowered his chin to take Tzadkiel in. “Fights have I had?”
Tzadkiel eyed the hunter, not bothering to hide his antipathy now that they were away from the man’s friends. “How many of my people have you killed?”
Benjamin’s lip curled. “Not enough.”
“How many?” Tzadkiel insisted. “I have a right to know.”
“How did my family die?” Benjamin whirled on him, arm wrapped around his ribs as if he held himself together from the outside. “Quick or slow? Did you slit their throats or drain them dry?”
They paused at the corner of Tremont and Boylston, waiting for two vehicles to pass. Slush splattered Benjamin’s coat, making the hunter flinch. Tzadkiel didn’t know what to say. He had called 911 using the uncle’s telephone—his last conscious act for a long, long time—and alerted the authorities to the boy’s presence before fleeing.
“I woke up before the ambulance arrived.” Benjamin interrupted Tzadkiel’s memories of the event. “I tripped over them—fell on top of my mother.” Voice faltering, he shook his head. “She wouldn’t wake up. I kept trying to wake her up.”
“They didn’t suffer,” Tzadkiel lied, though he didn’t know why.
He’d killed the uncle outright—broken his neck with a satisfying twist and crunch of bone and cartilage. Benjamin’s father, he’d strangled to unconsciousness before the mother descended the basement stairs. Then he’d done the same to her, recognizing in her face and features the bloodline he’d been fighting for millennia. He’d drunk deeply from his victims—slitting their throats and sucking at wounds that would never heal.
It had been the first time Tzadkiel had ever resorted to feeding outside of ceremony. He’d needed to feed. The blood had been the only thing that had enabled him to heal enough to go into hiding—to survive. If his blood hadn’t been so freshly tainted with iron it might even have healed him.
Though Tzadkiel regretted Benjamin’s terror and his orphaned state, he couldn’t regret the taking of those three lives. And he certainly didn’t regret doing what he’d had to in order to endure the hell the hunters had brought down upon him and his own family.
“Twelve,” Benjamin replied. “I’ve killed twelve.”
Tzadkiel gasped. The man who walked next to him now had taken almost as many of his people in twenty-eight years as the uncle, father, and mother had in forty. Before Tzadkiel recovered from the information, the hunter continued speaking.
“I couldn’t sleep through the night for the longest time. I heard your voice everywhere. The doctors called it PTSD. They put me into a psych ward after I was released from the hospital. They thought I’d never get out.” Benjamin rubbed his arms in a self-conscious gesture. “Neither did I.”
The office windows captured Tzadkiel’s and Benjamin’s reflections. Almost equal in height, one blond and one dark, Tzadkiel thought they resembled two friends out for a late-night stroll. Nothing could have been further from the damnable truth. Sympathy warred with anger, warred with pain. Tzadkiel clenched and unclenched his jaw, holding back a flood of emotion through sheer will alone.
“Then I met Nyx and Akito.” A smile ghosted over Benjamin’s lips as the hunter rambled on, apparently unaware of Tzadkiel’s reactions to his story. “I could see her, you know, because of her magic. At first I thought it was some new delusion. Then…” Benjamin shrugged. “I found out she was in the hospital because she had told her best friend her mother was from faerie and her father wanted to kill her. When her friend told on her to her teacher, the school made her see the school psych nurse who had her committed after finding coven stuff in her locker. But at least she wasn’t with her family.”
“And your other friend?” Tzadkiel asked, curious about the journey Benjamin the boy had taken to become the man who walked beside him tonight.
“Akito was in because he thought he was a superhero. He’d tried to jump off a building to prove it to the kids who’d been bullying him for being in foster care.” Tossing his head, Benjamin seemed to throw off the painful knowledge. “Anyway, Nyx and Akito taught me to fight. They were the only people who believed I wasn’t insane. They’re the reason I worked at appearing sane enough to get out. Probably they’re the reason I’m alive. And they’re sure as fuck the only reason I’m helping you.”
Picturing Benjamin locked inside a sterile building, alone in the darkness, turned Tzadkiel’s stomach. Though they were enemies now, Tzadkiel had never wanted any harm to come to the boy.
“Why are you telling me all of this?” Tzadkiel asked when they turned toward Chinatown.
It wasn’t as if Tzadkiel had earned the right to such intimacy, and it wasn’t as if he had asked for a rundown on Benjamin’s personal life. In fact, he probably should have discouraged the story. Though the knowledge wouldn’t affect his decision about executing the hunter, it would make it more difficult for him to accomplish the deed. Perhaps that was the point.
Holding his middle with his forearm, Benjamin trudged alongside Tzadkiel, his reply breathy with pain. “Because I want you to understand.”
“Understand what, exactly?” Tzadkiel asked.
Flickering neon illuminated their way as they walked in the middle of a quiet side street, rather than on the un-shoveled sidewalks. The restaurants themselves had been dark for hours.
“First, why I chose to help you find your cup and stop the coven.” Sweat glistened on Benjamin’s pale brow, and he paused to wipe it away with shaky fingers. “Nyx and Akito saved my life, and I’m not going to let you hurt them. I know how much effort it took for my family to bring you down.”
A sardonic smile lifted Tzadkiel’s lips. If the hunter thought he was powerful now, it was a shame he would be dead when Tzadkiel first sipped his blood from the kylix.
Though he planned to keep his word, he would do what he had to in order to accomplish his aims. If the hunter went back on his promise, Tzadkiel could use this leverage with a clear conscience.
“You said ‘first,’ ” Tzadkiel prompted. “Is there a ‘second’?”
Benjamin winced on a too-deep breath. “I’ll never stop trying to kill you or your people.”
Brave words for a man who now ran his free hand along the buildings they passed in order to remain upright. The walk had clearly exhausted him in his injured state. Still, Tzadkiel was glad he hadn’t let on exactly how diminished his own powers were at present.
“You killed my family.” Benjamin straightened and sucked in a pained breath. “If I can kill everyone you love in return before I take your head from your shoulders? Then you and they are dead men. My killing twelve of your people will seem paltry in comparison.”
Inhaling, Tzadkiel drew himself to his full height. “Careful, hunter. You’ve taken enough from me that I already see no need to gentle your death.”
“Bring it on.” Benjamin stomped the snow off his boots in careful taps as he clutched his midsection. “I’m not a coward.”
Tzadkiel drew back his upper lip. Empty sockets pulsed underneath his gums, as if his fangs extended. “I suggest you rethink your tone with me, pup.”
“You want to do this here?” Benjamin’s grin wasn’t nice. “Because I know where we are, and I’ll use it to my advantage.”
Tzadkiel raised one brow, wondering how much the hunter knew. “And where do you think we are, exactly?”
They were, in fact, where Tzadkiel had intended—standing in front of the place he was fairly certain housed his kylix. If he were the coven, he’d certainly have kept the object here where they held their meetings.
“We’re near the coven’s shop.” Benjamin pointed to a rickety building at the end of the alley. It seemed to slump drunkenly into its neighbors, in search of support. “They sell herbs, candles, potions, and other stuff to tourists here. It’s a front though. Their meeting rooms are also here.”
“How do you know all this?” Gaze narrowed, Tzadkiel wondered if he’d let himself be led into a trap. It would be classic if he’d thought he was leading his enemy when in fact the enemy knew all along what was in store at the end of the journey. What if Benjamin had been part of the coven’s plot all along?
Benjamin returned his attention to Tzadkiel. “None of your business.”
“If you plan to betray me, I suggest you think again, hunter.”
Benjamin uttered a hoarse “Fuck off” in the habitual retort Tzadkiel now recognized as the hunter’s knee-jerk fear response.
Tzadkiel opened his mouth, intending to press the point, but the creak of door hinges aborted his intended interrogation. He and Benjamin simultaneously pressed their backs to the wall of the nearest building; to an outsider it could only appear choreographed precision.
Out of the shop stepped three men. One had short red hair and wore a navy blue peacoat. The man next to him sported a frayed denim jacket and ripped jeans inadequate for the temperatures. The third of the trio Tzadkiel recognized as the Morgan, or coven leader.
Spiked white hair and a dark turtleneck tucked neatly into pressed trousers shouted beatnik chic. To look at the man, one would never know he was one of Boston’s two most powerful witches and head of the oldest North American coven.
If the men came down the alley and turned left, Tzadkiel and Benjamin both would be exposed. The hunter could fight using the sword secreted in the cane he clutched, but would quickly lose in his injured state. Though Tzadkiel itched to go on the offensive, he knew he was no match for the Morgan at present.
The men drew closer and Tzadkiel dampened his aura. Benjamin inhaled sharply—perhaps in disorientation—but didn’t make any other sound. The Morgan and his companions approached the intersection of the alley and street, appearing to angle toward the left. Tzadkiel gripped his knife and prepared to draw his sword. Intent on the men, he didn’t register Benjamin’s movement until the hunter stepped into the light of the only functioning streetlamp. A black orb appeared in the Morgan’s hand, but the man stayed the twitch that would have released it.
“Mr. Morgan.”
Tzadkiel repressed a curse. The hunter was going to betray him.
“Benjamin?” The Morgan moved forward, separating himself from the other men, who exchanged wary glances. As the coven leader neared, Tzadkiel scented blood and death—the kind of death that only dark magic could bring. If he’d harbored lingering doubts that the man had been responsible for creating the keres, he no longer held them.
“Sorry to bother you, sir, but I didn’t know where else to go.” Benjamin staggered, holding his rib. “A vamp got the better of me tonight, and the hospital’s out of the question.”
A smile flitted across the Morgan’s face, but was quickly replaced with an expression of fatherly concern. “Is Nyx with you?”
Tzadkiel barely breathed, waiting for the words that would give away his location.
“No, sir.”
The Morgan’s two companions came closer at a gesture. He said to one, “Fetch a vial of bone broth.”
While Redhead removed to do his master’s bidding, Benjamin opened his coat and shirt at the Morgan’s insistence. Though his jaw clenched with the effort, Benjamin didn’t make a sound while he submitted to the coven leader’s prodding and poking.
“Looks like you were lucky,” the man commented, glancing to Benjamin’s wan face. “Where is Nyx this evening?”
“We had a falling out over a guy I’m seeing.” Benjamin swallowed once, a gesture that brought Tzadkiel’s attention to his neck. “We haven’t spoken in a while.”
The Morgan searched Benjamin’s face, likely sniffing out any lies. Tzadkiel, however, knew the hunter’s replies had been sufficiently vague to skirt the truth. After a moment, the witch’s frown turned into a knowing smile.
“Such a hothead. Like my wife.”
“Yes, sir,” Benjamin said. “I’ll pass along your regards.”
Tzadkiel raised both brows at the promise, as did the Morgan.
“Do not bother to lie to me. I know my child hides from me with your aid. Someday I will discover where and how.” The Morgan’s smile failed to reach his eyes. “You and I are aligned in our fight against the vampires. That is enough to make us allies…for now.”
A few more minutes of small talk, the reappearance of the Morgan’s assistant, and the administration of bone broth—the drinking of which made Benjamin gag—gave Tzadkiel time to climb to the top of the nearest brick building and hide. Not until the men had disappeared from sight did he climb back down to where Benjamin, shirt lifted, coat opened, ran light fingers over fading bruises. Tzadkiel uncloaked his aura, making himself visible to the hunter, and Benjamin quickly lowered his shirt.
“Why didn’t you betray me?”
“You think I’d kill you before I have a leg up on that bastard?” Putting his coat to rights, Benjamin lifted his head. “For reasons even beyond those keres—if he’s even creating them—the man needs to be taken out.”
Tzadkiel raised a brow, dubious.
“Besides…” Benjamin broke into a self-satisfied grin and uncurled his upturned palm. “I got these.”
A gaping Tzadkiel nearly kissed the man, this time for real. Benjamin saved him the embarrassment by stalking to the coven’s ramshackle storefront. It was a moment before Tzadkiel realized the hunter intended to use the stolen keys here and now, without planning or forethought.
Tzadkiel crossed icy pavement in a burst of preternatural speed. The effort cost him, but he managed to stay the hunter’s hand. Benjamin looked over his shoulder. The spiderweb of cracks in his sunglasses fragmented Tzadkiel’s grim-faced reflection.
“What?” Benjamin asked, key poised at the lock.
“We need to plan our attack, not rush in like fools.”
Blond brows rose. “Are you afraid?”
“I beg your pardon?” Tzadkiel almost sputtered. No one had dared call his bravery into question since his brothers and he were knee-high to— “No. Neither am I foolhardy enough to enter this particular situation without preparation.”
“This is our chance,” Benjamin shot back. “You think the Morgan’s not going to notice his keys are conveniently missing and set a trap if we wait until later?”
Tzadkiel scanned the front of the building, assessing. Iron bars protected the shop windows. Covered in peeling red paint, the door appeared to be metal and quite solid. If it came to breaking and entering, keys presented a better option.
“How do you know there is no alarm system?”
“There probably is.” Benjamin shrugged. “But we don’t have time to piss ourselves over it if you want to find your precious cup.”
Though Tzadkiel hated to admit it the hunter was correct. Undoubtedly the Morgan’s paranoia over the missing keys would lead the man to take extra measures to secure the shop. This would likely be their only opportunity to search the building unless they wanted to waste time on concocting a subterfuge.
“If you wish to keep your hand attached to your person, take care not to lay it on my mora’s most sacred object.” For emphasis, Tzadkiel tightened his fingers around the hunter’s wrist.
Benjamin barred his teeth. “Let go.”
After an appropriate pause, Tzadkiel stepped back. He waited as the hunter tested each key in the rusty door. Perhaps planning was overrated in this particular war. After all, nothing could have foretold his ambush and betrayal, or his torture and his mora’s subsequent downfall twenty years past. They’d taken all the precautions in the world, and still been taken unawares. He had waited long enough to regain control over his life. He refused to allow another night to pass before he claimed what was rightfully his.