“There’s something you’re not telling me,” I said, watching him for any reaction.
“There are a lot of things I haven’t told you and will not tell you, you should accept that,” he replied quickly, stunning me into an unanticipated silence. “You’re not ready to know it all, Quintessa. Not by a long shot.”
“That’s not up to you!” I yelled, my voice cracking. “Have you claimed me?”
The words seemed foreign to me, but from the look on Xavier’s face, he knew what I was talking about. “Why are you asking this?”
“I’m starting to think that an episode of blood play might not have been just a quick and easy way to get me to heal.”
Xavier smirked, the gesture not reaching his eyes. “You’re far smarter than anyone gives you credit for, Quinn.”
“You haven’t answered my question,” I snapped, holding firm.
“No, I haven’t,” Xavier said. “I think you already know the answer, don’t you?” His large body shifted, muscles rippling beneath his tight cotton shirt as he stood from his desk and prowled towards me. With each step came yet another burst of that white-hot burn across my skin, leaving me tingling and shaking in anticipation. I fought the desire to lunge forward and grip onto his shoulders, latch my arms around his waist, and beg him to fuck me on that pretentious desk of his.
“What does it mean?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper. Xavier paused in front of me, his bear-like stature eclipsing me as he lifted a hand and gently cupped my cheek. Every ounce of self-control I had left wasn’t enough to make me move.
He pursed his lips and studied the contours of my face as though it were the first time he was seeing it. “I didn’t give you enough to forge an eternal bond, the effects will be temporary.”
“How temporary?” I asked, battling between anger and lust as his thumb traced across my bottom lip.
“A year, maybe two,” he finalised, his expression unchanging.
I shook my head, putting distance between us and instead choosing to steady myself with my back against the closed door. “Last night?”
He didn’t need to explain further. He knew exactly what I was getting at and he nodded silently.
“You’re a fucking asshole, you know that?” I hissed, pushing away from the door and shoving my hands into his chest. The shove did nothing to him, and he stayed as statuesque as ever.
“We didn’t have time to let you heal naturally,” he sighed, as though I were taking up too much of his time.
“That’s utter bullshit and you know it.”
Despite the tug in my chest, the cord that had been unwillingly tied to him, objecting with each step—I opened the door and marched back down the hallway.
“Quinn!” Xavier called behind me. “Quintessa!”
I ignored the stares of disbelief from the monsters drinking and chatting on the upper floors, ignored his yelling, and descended the stairs.
The second the frosty night air hit me, it was an instant relief, but I didn’t stall. It was a five-minute walk to the nearest tube station, and I wasn’t about to hang around waiting for any unwanted company. I was done for tonight at least. I pulled out my phone and typed a quick message to Thatch on my way, trying to ignore the fact I felt far less safe walking the streets at night nowadays. I’d always held myself high in the ‘able to take care of myself’ department, but now that I knew all the things that were lurking out here in the shadows just waiting to take a bite—I wasn’t feeling so confident.
It was relatively busy. A pleasant spring night in London meant many bars and restaurants had opened their terraces and gardens. Although it was a little late for them to be filled to the brim with people, there were still a few tables filled at each place I passed. Couples on dates, friends meeting after work, the odd person on their own with a glass of wine and a book. A brush of wind blew past me just as I was studying a small group of students huddled around a table with pints of lager in their hands, laughing and grinning. That I felt something peculiar. At first, I thought it was just a chill from the breeze prickling at the skin on the back of my neck, where one of my more visible scars could be found. Instinctively, I reached up and clasped my hand to the thick nodules of skin there, massaging the knots as though it would take away the prickly discomfort. My eyes moved away from the people outside the bars and instead scanned the area in front of me, tall buildings and tiny coffee shops, the odd boutique store with the shutters down and locked in place.
“Quintessa,” a voice purred lowly, the air carrying the sound passed me and directing me to the left, where the road split off into a darker passage. The voice echoed in my head like the start of a migraine and my eyes clenched shut, trying to push it out with no success. All the bustle from the bars and restaurants slipped away into silence, leaving a deep humming in its place.
“Quintessa,” it continued, urging me to step forward, leading me away from the safety of the public eye and into the unknown. Unable to stop myself, I did as it asked, walking cautiously off down the darkened road until the night swallowed me whole.
My eyes deceived me. Patterns and bursts of dark greens and purples flooded my vision until my legs all but buckled beneath me. Nausea clenched my throat and as the ground beneath me steadied itself, I was thrown forward onto hands and knees to empty the contents of my stomach.
When I was done gasping for air and spitting the remnants of vomit from my mouth, the voice called out again, only this time, it wasn’t the distant whisper it had been previously. It was right in front of me.
“I was wondering if you’d ever leave his side.”
My blurred vision tried to concentrate on deciphering which direction was up and which was down, when finally, she stepped out of my peripheral and knelt down in front of me. Her kindly face level with my own.
“Miranda,” I spluttered, fighting the urge to puke all over again. Her slender hand reached out to take mine, and she helped me up from the ground with ease.
“Nice to see you paid literally no attention to my warnings about Xavier Sallow,” she snapped, arching a finely plucked eyebrow at me as she dusted off my jeans on my behalf.
“How did I get here?” I asked, frowning at the four small walls of her cottage kitchen, the same one I’d been sitting in with Thatch just last week.
“I opened a gate and I’m not pleased about it. Keeping the balance is hard enough without throwing doors open left right and center, but you left me with no other options.”
“What, you don’t have a phone?” I hissed as she pulled me away from the pile of my sick and sat me down at her kitchen table. She filled a small silver pitcher with tap water and set it down on the table in front of me, alongside two plastic tumblers that had seen better days. They didn’t fit with her whole aesthetic, and I wondered if maybe she just didn’t trust me with glass right now.
“Drink. You’ll feel a little shaken,” she urged, pouring water into the tumbler and pushing it towards me.
“No shit, I feel like I just got put through a blender and came out backwards,” I replied, gulping down the water until the cup was empty. On cue, Miranda filled it back up again and leaned back in her chair to study me. “Why did you bring me here?”
“You’ve been causing a stir,” she admitted. “The Guardians have asked me to talk with you.”
I blinked at her, beyond exhausted and a little terrified she would throw me back through one of those gate’s if I didn’t comply with whatever her orders were.
“Am I being grounded? Detention? What are the Guardian’s terms for punishment, anyway?”
“Now isn’t a time for jokes, Quintessa,” Miranda sighed. “They are concerned you’re growing too close to Xavier.”
“Oh please,” I chuckled, rolling my head from side to side to relieve some of the pain that had built up in the muscles.
“This is important,” she added. “I’m telling you this not as a council member, but as a friend to Thatcher.”
“So what, thi
s is a verbal warning to what? Take orders from some group of old men I’ve never met? I don’t even know why I’m involved in all of this. All I’m trying to do is find Jocelyn and get her home to her sister.”
“If you’re not careful, there’ll be thousands more Jocelyn’s.”
My brow furrowed, and I suddenly regretted gulping down all that water. “What are you talking about?”
“You recall the last time you were here, I explained about the missing girls over the years. Every decade, ten girls?”
I nodded solemnly, “I remember.”
Miranda drew a long breath in through her nose, pursing her lips and blinking as though physically in pain. “We have reason to believe this is our last chance to stop the sacrifices.”
“Sacrifices?”
She nodded. “There had always been evidence that these missing girls were being used to feed something, something far bigger than just vampires or greedy warlocks. Recently, the Guardians were contacted by a gatekeeper who informed us that an upper-level demon had remained in London for an extended period undetected. Something which shouldn’t be possible, not with the level of protection we have on the gates.”
“Seamus?” I muttered, thinking back to the dishevelled man Xavier had taken me to visit.
Miranda frowned, not even attempting to hide her surprise. “How did you know?”
“Xavier,” I began, clearing my dry throat and trying to ignore the second wave of nausea that threatened my empty stomach. “He took me to him recently. He wanted to know if anyone had come through the gates but not left.”
“Huh.” Miranda’s scowl deepened as she considered my words.
“What? Xavier not fitting the 1000-year-old serial killer image you’d created for him?” I raised an eyebrow at her and she replied by shooting me a look that could have turned me to stone if I’d been sensitive enough to care.
“He’s still a monster, Quintessa. Nothing can change that,” Miranda replied as casually as if she were chatting about the weather. “But you’re right, it doesn’t fit with the killings of these girls.”
“Look, this is all fine and dandy but, what can we do about it?”
There was a long pause as Miranda studied my face intently while she sucked silently on her teeth behind her thin lips. “It depends.”
“On what?”
“Whether this means you’re willing to work with us.”
By us, I presumed she meant the ever-mysterious Guardian’s. Honestly, no. I wasn’t willing to work for some group I’d never met and knew nothing about. That wasn’t in my job description, and I certainly didn’t feel good about it, especially when they’d given me no reason to put my trust in them. Although, to be fair, neither had Xavier. Yet I’d followed him around willingly, like a lost little puppy. That alone was enough to make me want to throw up all over again.
“There’s a key part of that sentence that I’d like to highlight,” I began. “Work with.” I paused, steadying my elbows on the table and leaning forward. “I want to make it clear I don’t work for you, or for them. At this point, I’m not even working for Thatcher. I work for myself. But I’m open to sharing information with you if it means I have a better chance of finding Jocelyn and ending this, for good.”
Chapter Nineteen
Much to my utter dismay, Miranda chose not to drive to wherever the Guardians were. When she’d said she was going to take me to meet them, I’d hoped we’d be clambering into her car and taking part in some powerful-women-save-the-world road trip with a montage and a couple stops for a caffeine refuel. But no.
Almost straight away, she started fumbling with a large brass bowl that had seen better days and lighting candles. I watched with dread as she sprinkled and poured and whispered over her collection of random objects, her hands moving fluidly in patterns that meant nothing to me.
“I’m guessing this means we’re taking a gate?” I groaned, unable to hide my pout.
She nodded, still chanting, as she picked up a small blade and pressed the sharp tip into her finger. A small drop of blood pooled around the prick and she wiped it around the edge of the bowl before placing the finger between her lips. Without a word, she walked over to me and grabbed my hand, pulling me forward and propelling us into both nothing and everything all at once. My body argued against the combination of being stretched and constricted and I scrunched my eyes shut against the impending flashes of bright light and contrasting darkness until eventually my feet met with solid ground. Thankfully, Miranda made sure that this time around, I landed a little more steadily.
She brushed herself off effortlessly, letting go of my hand to straighten her flowing dress and fold a strand of hair behind her ear.
“See, it gets easier each time,” she smiled encouragingly before walking off towards the imposing building in front of us.
“Oh yeah, piece of cake,” I grunted in reply, following her up the short flight of stone steps outside what appeared to be a town hall or library. Whatever it was, it was big and old, with dark gothic architecture indicative of what you’d find in history textbooks on the subject. It was only as we stepped inside that I realised it wasn’t a cathedral or something equally intimidating, but more of a country club with a built-in library.
The intimidatingly high walls were lined from floor to ceiling with books, chandeliers dangled from the ceilings which were reflected in the white marble floors. It was quiet, despite there being at least twenty people milling around, eyeing the books or sitting at tables in conversation. The vast majority of the people were writing in notebooks or studying the bookshelves, so much so that when Miranda turned to me to speak, I winced and bit back the urge to shush her.
“The Guardian’s predominantly work out of this office. If you need to speak with them at any point, this is where you’ll come,” she stated matter-of-factly.
“And where is this, exactly?” I asked, cluelessly.
“Edinburgh,” she replied, frowning. “Sorry. I keep forgetting you’re not used to using the gates.”
“Didn’t you say that opening and closing gates disrupts the balance or some shit?” I added, glancing up at the detailed carvings that covered several of the spaces above the bookshelves.
She nodded slowly as though remembering her words. “It does. But sometimes it’s necessary. It was either this, or we spent the next four hours on a train.”
“Or we call them. I presume they have a phone,” I replied. “I mean that one has an iPad.” I nudged her, pointing to an elderly gentleman, his glasses perched on the edge of his nose as he frowned down at the device in his wrinkled hands and jammed a finger against the delicate glass screen.
She huffed out a laugh. “He’s not a Guardian, plus, they prefer to meet in person where possible. Especially when it is something urgent.”
“Would you consider this urgent?”
Miranda took two marble steps at a time effortlessly and I followed on my trembling legs, still reeling from my second trip through the gate. At least I hadn’t felt the need to throw up yet, which I guessed was a bonus, given that almost everyone in this place had looked up to scrutinise me by this point.
“I’d say a top tier devil hiding out in a human city for centuries could be considered an apocalypse waiting to happen, yes,” Miranda sighed, as if she were tired of my constant questioning.
It took a lot of effort to keep my mouth shut while I followed her down a wide hallway that was just as overtly extravagant as the library below, but I did my best. Eventually, the hall opened into a round chapel with a dome-like ceiling adorned with paintings and carvings that would give any Italian chapel a run for its money. There was just one difference with these stunning pastel paintings—there were no angelic faces or ivory wings, only sharp teeth, battle scenes, and tortured screams. It was horrifying to witness and brought the nausea back like a punch to the gut.
“Ladies,” a voice bellowed from a set of double doors ahead that I hadn’t even noticed, and I did my best to foc
us my bleary eyes on the man walking towards us. His dark eyes seemed to study me with a familiar curiosity as he grew closer, but he averted those attentions and smiled warmly at Miranda, reaching his hand out to grasp hers.
“A pleasure to see you again,” he welcomed, placing a quick peck on the top of her hand. I raised an eyebrow as I watched her cheeks flush pink, wondering if we just came here to ogle the eye candy. There were no complaints on my side. He was lovely—I had just thought this entire situation was erring on the side of disastrous and right now Miranda was looking at this guy like he was a damn snack.
Which he was, but that was beside the point.
“Gabriel, this is Quintessa Laurier,” Miranda introduced, her eyes wide and unblinking, as if she were trying to get across some unspoken message to the man that was so far going unnoticed. Mostly because all his attention was on me.
“I know who she is,” he replied, quietly, his tone lacking the crisp warmth it had had just moments ago. “This was a risk, was it not?” Gabriel turned back to Miranda with a scowl, waiting for her to answer his vague question.
She shrugged. “I don’t see why. Balance, Gabriel. It’s always been about balance.”
I resigned myself to having no clue what they were talking about and sighed, “Do you guys have a coffee bar or something here?”
The scowl that Gabriel shot me gave me the impression that he was far less than pleased that I had invaded his space and I sucked my lips into my mouth as though I were sucking on a lemon.
“We need to talk about Lilith. Quinn is involved now and once you get to know her you’ll realise that she won’t be going anywhere anytime soon.” Miranda’s tone was firmer now, the first inkling of authority I’d sensed from her since we’d entered this place. Much to my relief, Gabriel appeared to agree with her and nodded gracefully, a strand of blonde hair escaping from its loose ponytail at the base of his neck.
Silver Vein: Beneath the City Sleeps Book 1 Page 16