Taken

by Claire Farrell

  Sometimes I thought the same thing. The night his girlfriend and her parents were killed had changed him forever. He probably wouldn’t have survived the grief without his drive for revenge. He needed to find out where his son had been taken and what happened to him, but if he did, what would keep him alive?

  I nuzzled his neck, taking in that cinnamon scent. He stiffened a little, and I let go. Ever since I had drunk his blood, he had issues with me getting too close to any major arteries. I put up with it because I didn’t wholly trust myself either.

  “Don’t,” he said, pulling me back and pressing his lips to mine. His kisses were always fierce, and that one was no exception. He took everything, gave everything, and left me breathless in more ways than one.

  I wished it could last.

  Chapter Two

  I thought about Peter as I showered the following morning. In some ways, we had gotten closer, but I couldn’t call it a relationship. We were two lonely people drawing comfort from one another, except for the times he dragged me everywhere under pretence of helping me do my job. Really, he was using me to get what he wanted. And I let him. Every time. I even played along with his out-of-control-human routine.

  The night before was a prime example. He had come to me with yet another lead, someone who might have news about the slave markets or even the rebels. Thinking about it later, I realized he hadn’t actually confirmed which. But when we got there, he used up our one question to ask something pointless. He had made sure he was seen with me, a well-known face of the Council’s darker interests, and that usually meant answers came quicker.

  I definitely wanted to discover what had happened to his son, but there were better ways of phrasing a question, better methods for drawing the truth out of something that wasn’t quite human. And I still had my own jobs to do. They had to come first. I was the one who would have to face the consequences of failure.

  When we first met, Peter had assumed I was a vampire out to get him, but he had slowly been persuaded that I wanted to do good. At least, I hoped he had been persuaded. Sometimes, I couldn’t be sure.

  I dried off, dressed, headed to the kitchen, and ate. Afterward, I decided I was still hungry. I made a plan to have a second breakfast with Carl, the human I had essentially made my brother. I was still under orders to keep an eye on Eddie Brogan, Keeper of Knowledge, Guardian of Sleeping Gods, blah, blah, blah, but seeing his shop assistant was a good way around that.

  I left with the sun blazing against the red-bricked front wall of my home. My house was like something out of a fairytale on sunny days, and I loved living in the cul-de-sac, surrounded by both humans and supernaturals, but never having to hide my true face. I really needed to thank Peter for finding me the place; I was truly happy there.

  I wasn’t exactly inviting my neighbours for dinner, but we all nodded and smiled politely whenever the opportunity arose. An air of relaxation and contentment surrounded the community. We were safe from the outside world and safe from each other. The only one I had ever really spoken to was the daughter of my next door neighbour. Her mother kept her head down, barely raising her eyes to nod at me in greeting, but she was never unpleasant.

  I grinned as I passed the garden and spotted Dita’s hair glisten in the sunlight. “Morning, Dita. Enjoying your holidays?”

  She beamed up at me, her dark blue eyes shining and her hands still in the dirt. She was quite possibly the cutest kid I had ever seen in my entire life, and although I knew there was something supernatural about her and her mother, I wasn’t sure what. Not that I cared. And that was the beauty of Mrs. Yaga’s housing. Nobody cared.

  “I’m planting. Can I do your garden? It’s kind of messy.”

  I bit my lip to keep from laughing. “You know what? You’re so right. Maybe I’ll hire you to fix it up for me.”

  She tossed her head, but her dark blond hair fell back into her eyes. “Do I get a break?”

  I shrugged. “I’ll have to think about that one. I mean, time is money.”

  She chortled and turned back to her work. “I’m very expensive.”

  “I bet you are. Can I get your majesty something in the shop, if your Mam says it’s okay?”

  “Lip gloss?”

  “Nice try. I heard your mother telling you no already this morning.”

  She grinned up at me. “I’ll have to make sure she’s a little quieter next time.”

  “Maybe I’ll bring you back a comic.”

  She brightened. “And I’ll get started on your garden.”

  “Nah. Enjoy the sun. I’d rather see you working in the rain, getting nice and muddy.”

  She stuck out her tongue and waved as I left, and I couldn’t help feeling good, even though the only neighbour I had ever had an actual conversation with happened to be a nine-year-old girl.

  I was probably happier than I had ever been. The vampires had all but disappeared for a couple of months, Carl was getting on okay, and I was no longer having energy stolen from me by a bitchy succubus. All in all, life was more than okay. I had friends, nobody had tried to kill me for months, and I felt safe for the first time in my life.

  Still, some things troubled me: the deal with the twins that I still hadn’t managed to sort out, the deals I had made with Gabe, and pretty much everything to do with either Eddie or my grandmother. Then, there was Peter.

  I was losing him to himself. I had always known there was something twisted and broken inside of him, but I thought it would heal eventually. After spending time with him, I could see that I had severely underestimated the extent of his pain and madness. And he was mad. Without even discussing it, both Carl and I tried to keep him human, but he was so far gone, so deep in the other world we lived in, that he might never go back to the way he used to be.

  I wasn’t altogether sure that knowing the truth about what had happened to his son would help him, but I feared that if he gave up, he would have nothing left. I didn’t want to see him wither and waste away. I didn’t want the world to chew him up and spit him out as it almost had Carl.

  I wanted them both to survive. I needed them to survive. After my trip to England, where Lucia had shown me things about myself, what I was capable of, I realised I needed them even more than they needed me. I needed them to keep me human, too.

  My cottage was a lot further away from Eddie’s shop than my old flat, but I enjoyed the walk. Peter and Carl kept encouraging me to get a car, but I wasn’t particularly interested in being in charge of a large weapon, and that was what it would become—something to run down rogue demons and vampires. I preferred to leave that sort of thing to Peter.

  I stopped into a nearby deli for some breakfast rolls, and then breezed into Eddie’s shop, trying to keep my face neutral as all of his dark magic pressed against me at once. Eddie and I weren’t on the best of terms anymore. He had been suspicious of me ever since I made a secretive deal with the angel Gabe to save Carl after both a succubus and I had messed up his mind, body, and soul.

  But the deal had been Eddie’s idea, and whatever he had been trying to do with that had obviously backfired. He was clearly pissed about something, and whenever I stepped inside the bookshop, I felt his magic warding me off. Sometimes, the ghostly presence greeted me, but she—Maeve as Eddie once called her—seemed to come to me less and less. I actually missed her.

  Carl pressed his finger to his lips when he saw me, so I sidled up to the counter and listened. I heard a woman’s laugh and raised an eyebrow, but he shook his head, a line on his forehead creasing.

  When I first met Carl, he had been handsome and vibrant. Now, a mere six months later, his blond hair was streaked with white and silver, and his once-bright blue eyes were tired and dull. He was still attractive, but he had aged a decade in that short period of time, mostly because of me. He was still getting used to his limitations, although he had taken to his new eavesdropping role like a duck to water.

  After a couple of moments of trying in vain to make out the murmurs, I g
ave up and waited. Eventually, a woman strode onto the shop floor, followed by an agitated Eddie. Agitated once he caught sight of me, that was. For a second, I didn’t recognise her. She was a lot different from the last time I had seen her. The human witch consultant to the Council had been unassuming looking before, even kind of mousy.

  Now her cleavage was on show and her lips a vampy red that matched the new streaks running through her brunette hair. A head taller than Eddie, she was a voluptuous woman, but she had always seemed plain and dumpy in the past.

  She slipped her glasses on with one smooth movement, and the corner of her mouth turned up in a sneer as she passed me, but she didn’t say a word. She had been the one who thought I shouldn’t go free at my trial before the Council, and yet she was hanging out with Eddie.

  She had changed, and it didn’t look like much of an improvement.

  The way Eddie wrung his hands together, I might have thought they were a secret couple, but she was pretty young, and he was, quite literally, ancient.

  “Same time tomorrow,” she called over her shoulder before slamming the door behind her.

  All three of us flinched. Eddie’s cheeks flushed, not surprising considering his pink and ginger complexion, but he seemed positively shaken.

  “Everything okay?” I asked, slightly alarmed by his less than calm appearance. If anyone was confident of what would happen next, it tended to be Eddie, so seeing him flustered kind of freaked me out.

  “Here again?” he asked dryly, flexing his fingers. “I thought you would have grown bored of us by now.”

  “Can’t let my best buddy starve.” I handed Carl his share of the food with a wink.

  Eddie frowned. “Or work, apparently.”

  “You know I need to make sure he’s okay.” I spoke softly, but I bristled with my own suspicions.

  Swallowing hard, Eddie gazed at me, his magic almost suffocating me. I refused to do anything other than smile sweetly, and he gave up and headed back upstairs, but my heart still pounded with apprehension.

  I hoisted myself onto the counter to quiz Carl. “New friend?”

  He shrugged, unwrapping his food. “She’s been popping in, on and off, for the last couple of weeks.”

  “Why?”

  He stared at me. “My hearing’s not that good.”

  “So is she weird, or am I just biased because she flashed me her boobs?”

  “I didn’t notice,” he said, but he was grinning. “My verdict? She’s weird. She comes in all meek, leaves as arrogant as… as one of the Council.”

  “What’s she doing here?” I asked, half to myself.

  “I’ll figure it out eventually,” he said brightly. “She comes in too often for me not to.”

  “You’re kind of like a magical sniffer dog now. Good work, Carl.”

  He threw a pen at me and missed. Cursing, he leaned against the desk and took a couple of deep breaths. The weakness hit him at random moments, and from the hard set of his jaw, he was still struggling to deal with it.

  “Can I get you anything?”

  “No! Just… just go, Ava.” His good mood had vanished, and I felt a squirm of agitation at the look in his eyes.

  I desperately wanted to talk to him, but I let it go for fear of scaring him off. I knew he was still trying to find his place in the world, but his weakness wasn’t something that should shame him. I could have helped him. Somehow. Like Peter, he retreated and pushed everyone away when things got tough. Not that I could talk.

  On the way home, I amused myself with thinking about the witch and what she might be doing with Eddie. It was possible they were in some kind of relationship, but Eddie had a habit of picking up strays so he could use them later on, and she set my alarm bells ringing. I was slowly learning to trust my instincts when it came to people being off in some way.

  I bought Dita a comic with a female superhero on the cover. Something about her mother sparked a memory, and I wanted for Dita something I’d never had—to let her see it was okay to be brave, that it was okay to learn how to save ourselves. That lesson was something I was still learning.

  Chapter Three

  Uncomfortable dreams haunted my sleep that night. Back in Liverpool with the twins, Lucia and Lorcan, surrounded by hooded figures with baseball bats. Lorcan trying to protect Lucia with his sword. Lorcan failing. The usually silent Lucia, covered in blood, looking straight at me and screaming like a harpy.

  I awoke shaking, covered in cold sweat, although my arms felt as if they burned. Turning on the light, I stared at my wrists in horror. A chain of scarred burn tissue circled both of my wrists.

  A quick scope of the house soon reassured me that no one had been in my home. So what was the wound from?

  I remembered my dreams. They had featured the half-fae twins, who I still owed a favour. I had promised to find a way to free them of their slavery to the vampires. I had promised them safety. I had made a deal, and I still hadn’t completed my end of it. Maybe the branding was some kind of reminder.

  I scrubbed my entire house, but even the excessive cleaning didn’t ward off the feeling of dread that scratched at my insides whenever I glanced at the brands on my wrists.

  I had agreed to meet Esther at Gabe’s bar, so I walked there that evening, enjoying the feel of the sun on my skin. If I was lucky, we would have a real summer, thus keeping the vampires away for longer.

  At the bar, the burly bouncers let me in without any hassle, although a couple of people in the queue hissed as I cut in line. I didn’t care. I couldn’t see, or smell, Esther, so I sat at the modern bar and waited for Finn.

  “Something non-fae tonight,” I warned the blond bartender.

  He grinned, but the smile froze on his face when he caught sight of my newly branded wrists on display as I removed my jacket. “Who did you piss off?” he asked, lifting my arm delicately and peering at the burn with real concern.

  “Someone who doesn’t exist,” I said sharply, remembering his dismissive comment about half-fae. “So what is it then?”

  “A link,” he said. “You and your deals are going to get you killed.”

  “What do I do about it?”

  He looked at me as if I were mad. “Do whatever you said you would do before your entire body gets covered with these. Eventually, it’ll get inside you. You won’t like that, Ava, so get cracking.”

  “I’m trying. It just isn’t as easy as I thought it would be.”

  He shook his head as he wandered off. “Sucks to be you.”

  I had been trying, but there were problems. England was going through one of their committee elections. Things were in a bit of an uproar because the elections had been called while most of the vampires hibernated or flew north for the summer. The sneaky elections had really pissed off the British Vampire Association. The BVA had hoped to gain a chair and power for the first time in decades.

  Headed by a creepy, but smart, ancient vampire known as Winston, the BVA had returned home and made a huge stink about the elections, which caused some not-so-friendly fire. Travel had been pretty much forbidden until further notice. Not that I knew how I was going to sneak the twins out of the country even if I did make it over. I covered my wrists with my sleeves, deciding I didn’t want to be reminded of my failure.

  I gazed at the moving dragon tattoo on Finn’s stocky forearm as he worked, wondering what would happen when the links got inside me. The wailing of guitars playing Led Zeppelin’s Dazed and Confused caught my attention. I turned to watch the performance, and my breath caught in my throat. All eyes were on the woman behind the microphone, and I realised the wailing guitar was actually her voice.

  Her mouth barely opened, but her song whipped at my skin as if her passion couldn’t be contained, as if it would burn right through me. Her hips moved ever so slightly in time, and there was something hypnotic in her heavy-lidded eyes. I couldn’t look away.

  “Something else, isn’t she?” Finn asked.

  I could only nod. She was beaut
iful. Not just beautiful. As she sang, I wanted to go to her, to sit at her feet and wait for her to tell me what to do next. She seemed vaguely familiar, but that might have been due to the fact that she resembled a blond Jessica Rabbit.

  “Don’t look right at her,” Esther advised.

  I nearly jumped out of my skin. “I wasn’t.”

  She snorted. “Yeah, okay. Just don’t look at her while she’s singing. Trust me.”

  I turned to concentrate on Esther, but it was hard while the song was still in my head. Oddly for her, she didn’t have on a scrap of makeup, and she looked even younger than usual, her dark skin gleaming under the bar’s lights. Her hair was scraped back into a tight facelift bun, and her nails were bitten to the quick.

  She glanced at me. “Thanks for coming tonight.”

  “You okay?” I asked, concerned by her bloodshot eyes.

  “Yep. We’re here for her.” She nodded toward the singer.

  “What do you mean?”

  “She asked to see me, and I figured you would come in handy.”

  I should have been used to that. “What’s going on?”

  She sighed and took a sip of the drink Finn dropped off in front of her. “She’s Illeana’s big sister. Another siren.” Esther had always been so light-hearted, apparently incapable of taking anything seriously for more than a minute, but losing two members of her team had affected her deeply. She had been covering it up for a while, but the damage was beginning to show.

  “Did they want to talk to you about… about what happened to her?”

  She shook her head. “No. I’ve been looking through records at headquarters, making sure Illeana’s belongings made it back to her family. There are a lot of… inconsistencies in her reports and sign-ins, so I spoke to the sister, and she said we needed to talk in person. So here we are.” She shrugged. “I’ve no idea if she’ll tell me anything of interest, but I didn’t want to talk to her without a witness.”