by Rhys Lawless
Vampires weren’t wolves. We didn’t have alphas that we felt obliged to listen to and follow their orders. Clan masters were just that. Masters. They couldn’t command their subjects. They were leaders, and they were voted on.
Because I don’t want to be ripped to shreds. I’ve seen what happens to anyone who doesn’t follow his orders, all right?
Darius’s? I asked. That was far-fetched even for Darius.
No. Whoever is pulling the strings up above, the vampire said.
“If I let you go, will you promise not to try and hurt us?” I asked.
The guy wasn’t bad. He was scared. His entire body was shaking. Whatever was going on with the vampires, it wasn’t a unanimous decision to turn on the witches. It was fear politics.
I promise, he said.
What about your friend? I said and looked at the other vampire.
I don’t know him, he said.
It was becoming clearer by the second. The vampires were turning into soldiers under Christian’s rule. Because that was who was behind all this, wasn’t it? There was no doubt about that.
I released the vampire from my hold but kept the other one down.
“What’s your name?” I asked him as he stood up and dusted off his trousers.
“Selim,” he said.
“I’m Caleb, previously of the Cromwell clan,” I told him and extended my hand.
He eyed it suspiciously, but then probably decided that whatever I could do to him I hadn’t needed to use my hands, so he shook it.
“You were a vampire? H-how?” Selim asked.
“It’s a long story, buddy. But I can see you’re not a bad guy, all right. I need to talk to Darius,” I said.
Selim frowned and cocked his head to the side.
“Why?” he asked.
“Because we’ve got some unfinished business, and he owes me one.”
“I can’t go to him and tell him what…what just happened. If those above him don’t kill me, he certainly will,” Selim said.
I crossed my arms in front of my chest and smiled.
“Then don’t tell him what just happened. I was going to go looking for him after today, anyway. Tell him I found you and asked for an audience with him.”
Selim nodded and disappeared. He’d know where to find me if Darius accepted my invitation. Which he would. I knew him too well, and if he believed there was a single threat that would stand between him and his role as clan master, he would take my bait.
I walked towards the vampire still crawling in pain in front of the fox form of Easton, and as Easton returned to human, I looked at the vampire and tutted.
“Now what do we do with you?”
“I can make sure he doesn’t bite anyone ever again,” Easton replied and took a step towards the vampire.
I put my palm against his chest and stopped him.
“Before you do that,” I said and entered the mind of the vampire in search of answers, but as with Selim, he had none either.
Pawns.
They were all pawns in someone else’s game, and they were controlled by fear. How much power did Christian hold to be able to use the vampires for his bidding? Was he using his dhampir blood magic to force their hands?
It wasn’t possible to control so many, was it. And Selim was obviously not being mind controlled. As far as I could tell anyway. What game was Christian playing? What was his end goal? To eliminate all witches off the board? How would he feed on their magic then? Had he found a new source of power? Was the death of all the witches a strategic sacrifice to bring about bigger, stronger, more dangerous forces into the plane so he could feed on them?
None of it made sense. But then again, when did it ever where Christian was concerned?
“I will let you go. I suggest you hide until all this bullshit blows over or you will end up collateral damage,” I told the vampire. “Understood?”
The vampire accepted my offer and disappeared as soon as I let him go.
“Now what?” Easton asked me.
“Now, we wait,” I said.
“To another fucking year as a witch.” I raised my glass of beer.
“To another fucking year as a half-breed,” Easton said, and we clinked glasses.
“You’re friends with another half-breed? Fucking hell, Caleb. I thought I was your only one,” someone said behind me, and I choked on my drink in my rush to check who it was.
Hew came to stand next to me and nudged my ribs with his elbow.
“Just messing with you. Hey, I saw you at Primrose Hill. I didn’t realize you’re a halfling too,” he said to Easton and introduced himself. He sat down next to me and looked at my drink. “So, what does a girl have to do to get a drink around here?”
Since we’d been banned from the Crow, we’d started frequenting the pub across the street, a human bar that had seen better days. It was a cheap bar, with wallpaper peeling off the walls, and bar stools guarded day and night by old, bearded regulars in construction overalls.
To say we stood out like a sore thumb was an understatement.
“I’ll get you a drink. What do you want?” Easton asked and went to order at the bar.
“Where is Winston?” I asked Hew.
“With Ash and the rest,” Hew replied with a sigh. “He feels responsible for what happened so he’s working himself to the ground.”
“Well, the Rawthorne brothers do know how to feel miserable for themselves, don’t they?” I said.
Hew nodded with an eye roll and let the couch swallow him up.
“Trust me. He won’t let me touch him until this shit is over. I’m telling you,” he mumbled.
I laughed.
“Well, don’t worry. I’m going to take care of the vamp problem so you can get yours again soon.”
Hew gave me the side-eye and took the drink Easton offered him when he came back.
“How’s that going?” Hew asked after a big gulp of his wine. “God, this tastes like vinegar.”
We told him what had happened at the park and about Selim getting me an audience with Darius.
“Caleb, I know you used to be a vampire, but can you really trust this guy?”
I shrugged. “Can I trust anyone? You saw how the high council turned out. It doesn’t matter. If Darius knows I’m looking for him, he’ll come and get me. And then I can follow the breadcrumbs back to Christian.”
Hew patted my knee and stood up. “You’ve lived a fucked-up life, my friend. Have I ever told you that?”
“You don’t know the half of it.”
Hew laughed. “If you say so.”
“What do you mean?”
Hew walked away and demanded a replacement drink at the bar. His request was met with a grumble, but in the end, he returned with a fresh glass of wine.
I repeated my question, but he focused on savoring his wine.
“Let’s just say, I’ve met some of the people you’ve…associated with,” he said.
“I don’t under—”
“You know I can talk to spirits, right?” he said and pierced me with his gaze.
“Oh.”
I wanted to find out who he had spoken to. Had he talked to Jin? Was he still here? Was he watching out for me? Who else could he communicate with? Why had he never told me? I’d thought he was supposed to bring closure to the spirits’ loose ends and the people they’d left behind. Wasn’t that the purpose of his power?
As if he could read my mind, Hew put his glass down and said, “You’re not ready for this. Trust me. I’ll tell you when you are.”
Silence lingered around us as he let the subject drop, and Easton started cracking his knuckles, staring to the side.
“So…how come I haven’t seen you around?” Hew asked Easton, who turned his attention back to the table.
“Long story.” He sighed.
“Jeez, what’s with everyone and their long stories. Am I the only one who’s lived a boring life?”
I coughed. “I wouldn’t say your l
ife as a raven of the Tower of London is boring. Nor the fact that all your brothers dislike you,” I said, and Hew narrowed his eyes.
“Ass,” he said, and I laughed.
It was nice being surrounded by some sort of normality for a little while. Being able to laugh about stupid-ass jokes and be surrounded by friends. It fooled me into believing things weren’t so bad and that we would all be okay.
And then I remembered I was with two half witches who were probably safe from vampire attacks because of Nightcrawler protections and that most of my coven was hiding in plain sight in fear of being murdered.
Normal was over for us. We were in the middle of a war. A war that I didn’t know how to stop or avoid.
“Earth to Caleb.” Easton waved his hand in front of my face, and I returned to the table to try to enjoy the few moments of normalcy we were fooling ourselves with. “Where have you been?”
“I…I like this, guys,” I said.
“What do you mean?” Hew asked.
How could I explain to them? Would they even understand where I was coming from?
“I used to think all I wanted in my life was adventure. Danger. Pain. Yes, finding someone to love has always been a thing I’ve gone after, but I was always the first to answer a call to a mission. To hunt. The only other person I was ever with that made me think I wanted a normal life was Jin. And he was wildly taken away from me.
“I feel like history is starting to repeat itself, and I’m going to have all that I love stolen from me again. And I don’t want to. I’m tired of adventure. You know? I’m sick of losing people. Of politics and fights. I always thought danger was going to be part of my life, but I’m fed up with it.
“Look at us. We’re in a human pub, having a shitty beer, and all I can think is how much I love this. I’ve run away from normal all my life. Hell, I don’t even know the meaning of the word. But if this is what normal is, I want it. Badly.
“I guess, what I’m trying to say is, I don’t want to lose any of you guys or any of our friends. I don’t want to lose Wade, or Nora, or Annabel. I just want things to be…normal. For once in my life,” I said, and I had no clue if any of it made sense. It certainly didn’t sound like it in my head.
Neither of the guys said anything, they just glared at me and at each other, and I thought maybe I’d lost them in my delirium.
“What?” I said after the pause was too long.
Both men looked at me again, and Easton put his beer down on the table slowly and steadily.
“You’ve just described all of us, hon. You think it’s easy being on the run, not being able to ever see your family?”
“Or having your entire family, and species, turn against you because of what you are and who you love?” Hew interjected.
“We all feel exactly the same way,” Easton said. “At least I do. I want to be normal with my Troy and have our own family. I’m sure Hew wants the same thing. You’re not crazy or weird. You’re…well, normal.”
“Do you know how many times Winston and I have talked about finding or making a spell that could make us human so we could leave all this crap behind us and live a normal life?” Hew said.
“In a way, that’s what we’re fighting for, isn’t it?” Easton added. “For normal? That’s why we can’t let the vampires win. And we can’t let the Nightcrawlers wage their war.”
I looked from one to the other. Their eyes were red and full of understanding. It was obvious without my empathy. I guess we were sharing a natural empathic moment rather than a magical one, and it was just as strong as if I’d linked us all together.
“Promise me you won’t let anyone kill you, guys,” I said.
Easton laughed. Hew raised his wine glass and shouted, “I’ll drink to that.”
We all toasted to normal and protecting ourselves and each other, and as I touched the rim of my glass to my lips, a smashing sound permeated the space.
Everyone turned to the door where the sound had come from and so did I. The door had been broken in two, pieces of glass glimmered on the old, stained, carpeted floor.
Something blurred past me and I braced myself, tuned myself with all the beings in the room, and looked for the intruder.
I felt him before I saw him, and I turned to find a familiar face standing behind Easton with their fingers around his neck.
The vampire from the park. It wasn’t Selim. It was the other guy. He grinned and winked at me, and before I could react, he picked Easton up as if he weighed less than a piece of a feather and vanished into thin air, leaving behind the destruction of a human bar and our toast to normalcy.
“Who was that?” Hew asked.
“That was Darius sending me a message,” I said.
“What was the message?”
“He’s accepted my offer to meet him. And he’s baiting me in. Easton is his safety plan. If I do anything to hurt him, he hurts Easton.”
Eleven
Wade
“Now that they’re gone, let me set the expectations,” Troy said as soon as Caleb and Easton had walked out the door of my apartment to leave us alone. “I am not your buddy, nor a partner. I am simply helping you out on this because Easton wants me to. I can’t promise results, but it’s more than likely that I will find something if anyone has ever mentioned your father’s name on any digital device. If you try and rush me, or push me, or hurt me, you will pay. If you try to kill me, I will make sure you regret the sheer attempt. Got it?”
My head was still buzzing from the revelation that my dad was alive and a prisoner last night. I hardly paid attention to all of his remarks. What I did do was nod my head in agreement to everything he’d said.
It was obvious that my story hadn’t been enough to alleviate the resentment Troy held for me. And that was okay. He’d never got the chance to say goodbye to his father or hold him as he’d taken his last breath, and now that I was getting closer to mine, I could understand where he was coming from.
All my life I’d believed my father was a no-good asshole who had abandoned my mother and my brother and left us to fend for ourselves. But while I could understand Troy’s side, I had a brief chance to talk to him and ask him all the questions that were plaguing my mind.
“So, how does this work?” I asked as he opened up his laptop and laid his fingers on the keyboard. As soon as I spoke, he started typing furiously, like a madman.
“I ask and it delivers. It’s as simple as that. The hard part is the searching and sorting.”
“But you’re using your fingers? I thought you could communicate telepathically.”
“It’s technopathically, and I don’t need to type anything. It’s habit. Now if you don’t mind, I need to focus,” he replied, and I shut up and sat back on the couch.
“Would you like a drink? Coffee? Tea—?”
“I’ll have a beer.”
He wasn’t going to turn into Mr. Friendly Guy any time soon, but I couldn’t give up so easily. I got him his beer and rested it next to him a safe distance from his technology and cracked a can open for myself.
The doorbell chimed, and with the can in hand, I opened the door.
Winston walked in, flustered and out of breath.
“Why aren’t you answering your bloody phone?” he shouted and then noticed Troy at the table but didn’t bother saying hello to him.
“It hasn’t rung all day,” I said and approached the kitchen counter to check my phone and prove him wrong.
When I pressed the button to unlock it, it didn’t respond. Crap.
“It must have died. What’s up?”
“The guys are missing. The blades.”
I gestured for him to sit down on the couch, but he just stood in the middle of the room, hands on hips.
“Did no one come for practice again?” I asked. “Have you not spoken to any of the others? There’s no way everyone feels the same as Cora.”
Winston shook his head.
“You don’t understand, brother. They’re missi
ng missing. As in, they’re not in their homes or at their jobs. I’ve tried all of them and they’ve disappeared. Their phones are off as well.”
“I wonder what’s got into them? Why are they behaving like that? They were doing fine up until now.”
“Because they’re witch hunters and always will be,” came Troy’s words amid all the typing.
“You’re wrong, Troy. And you can stop being an ass about it too, all right,” Winston said, and Troy pushed his chair back and glared at Winston.
“Or what?” he said.
I stood between them and raised my hands.
“Behave. Both of you. Troy, go back to your laptop, and, Winston, take it easy on him. He’s helping us find Dad.”
Winston huffed and walked away from me.
“Again with this bullshit? Why? Why do you want to find him?” Winston said.
I approached him and put my hand on his shoulder.
“Troy’s boyfriend had a premonition. Our dad is alive, but he’s kept prisoner,” I told him. “Troy is scouring the internet for him.”
“Whose prisoner?” Winston asked.
“I don’t know. That’s what we’re trying to figure out.”
“Fine, if you want to waste your time looking for him instead of the blades…” he said and pulled his shoulder away from my touch.
“Why are you being like this, Winston? For fuck’s sake. What do you have against our dad? Huh?”
Winston turned around and threw a glance at me and then looked away again. He rubbed his face and cleared his throat.
“Nothing. But he’s been gone for years, and now apparently, he’s still alive. Which means he’s all right, prisoner or not. But God knows what’s going on with the guys,” he said.
“That doesn’t mean we can’t look for him,” I said.
“But we gotta have our priorities right,” he said.
“Yes, and you heard Cora. They want to live their lives. So maybe that’s why they’ve gone. But Dad? Dad is a prisoner. A prisoner, Winston.”
“So what? You find him and then what? What do you think is going to happen? Be a family? Is that what you think?” Winston shouted.