Riveted to the story Simon was telling, I couldn't bring myself to make a single sound, even to assure him I was still listening. And still, my mind kept trying to leap ahead, trying to work out what had led to the woman dying on my floor. Ieza, I reminded myself. Her name was Ieza, and she was human, and she’d been caught in the middle of something I was only beginning to understand.
"Four nights ago, after finishing a job in Athens, both Leda and I were called to Nadir's home, a little after midnight. It is one of the most fortified strongholds in the country. None of this was unusual. It was only as we were ushered into the front hall by human servants who would not meet our eyes, that we knew something was wrong. Nadir was seated in his favorite seat, a ridiculous gold chair clearly meant to be a throne. Ieza was at his feet. Alive and unharmed as far as we could see but chained to his feet. The next few hours after that were a blur. Leda disappeared, but only for a moment. When she returned, she was enraged. Furious. And holding a stake. She killed one of Nadir's lackeys. The most grievous offence that one of our kind," Simon nodded toward me, "can commit. I may have helped her. I'm not even sure anymore. It was only Nadir's hesitation to destroy us—we are valuable assets, after all—that gave us enough time to escape. ,"
I let out a breath, relieved, even though by the fact that Simon had been standing in front of me, I should have been able to work out that he'd managed to get away.
"We got away, meeting at a safe house in Norway that our parents had set up for us years ago. It was a place we were sure we couldn’t be found. But with half our family missing, there was no way we could be safe. Leda went home first, blinking in and out in only seconds at a time in case someone had been waiting, looking for any sign of her daughter."
"But she didn't find her..." The words escaped my lips at little more than a whisper.
"No. We had to assume that Nadir had her too and had been planning to use her to keep us in line. He hadn't counted on a mother's rage. But Leda could not stay away for long. She had left her phone behind, and Nadir had no way to reach out, to threaten her, but she still couldn't take the chance her family would be harmed. She made me stay behind, promising to be back as soon as she found Ieza and Kassie, that she'd bring them home. Waiting was the most excruciating thing I have ever experienced. Days passed, and I didn’t know if they were still alive. And I couldn’t lean on my friends, either human or magick. After the first day, Leda returned, but alone. Half of her face was covered in bruises. I suspect that her ribs might have been broken, but she wouldn’t stay long enough for me to look her over. All she told me was that the girls were still alive, and that Norway would not be far enough to run. And then she told me about you."
Surprised, my mind slammed back to reality. I cocked my head cocked to the side. “Me?”
"Leda told me of your faction, that protection was being offered to those of us who no longer wished to serve. Who needed another option. She told me to find you so that when she managed to find her family, we would all have somewhere to go where Nadir could not reach us."
"Once I knew what I was looking for, you were easy to find. Everyone, greater and lesser magick alike, has been speaking of you. I came to Galway immediately, intent on speaking to you. To beg for your help if that’s what it took. I only returned to our safe house the next night to see if Leda had found anything new. There was a phone waiting for me with one number programmed into it. When Taya brought me here today, I messaged the new number with your address."
"Which is how your sister knew where to bring her wife?" I asked, hoping I'd managed to keep up.
"Yes, I suppose. I hadn't expected her to find Ieza so soon, but I am grateful she did. I only wish that my sister had been able to stay to tell me what's happening. Is she coming back? Where is Kassie?" It sounded like Simon had about as many questions as I did.
A long moment passed without anyone speaking, leaving me to assume that Simon's story was over, at least the part that had happened before he met me. And with good timing too, as the sound of people running on metal started ringing out from the other end of the hall, getting closer and closer. Two paramedics appeared at the top of the stairwell.
"In here," I called out.
Without a word, the two of them disappeared inside. Simon moved to follow, but I pulled him back, knowing I wouldn't be able to keep him for long.
"We're going to find out what happened to Leda," I promised. "Ieza will be okay, and hopefully she'll be able to help fill in some of the gaps. After that, we'll get your family back."
Simon nodded but there wasn't a trace of reassurance on his face. Finally, I let him go, hoping the words I'd just offered wouldn't prove to be lies.
Chapter 4
After the end of my disastrous board game night, I had asked Taya to stay, to sleep on my couch, so I wouldn't have to be alone.
Cooper probably would be my first choice, but I hadn't managed to find the words to ask, not after he'd already saved a woman's life on my kitchen floor. He was still someone new in my life, maybe a friend, and I didn’t want to risk pushing him away. So instead, he had gone to the hospital to check up on things not long after the ambulance had pulled off my street. But Taya, I knew wouldn't say no.
I could hear her snoring away in the living room as I sat on the floor of my kitchen, trying to mop up as much blood as I could with the only rag I had been able to find. I'd already wrung the thing out three times in my sink, and still my floor was smudged with red.
So much red, so much blood. Ieza's blood.
When I'd first decided to move out of the apartment I shared with Taya, it had partially been because I hadn't wanted to live in the home where I'd been attacked by a coven of witches. The memories of all their faces, watching me, ready to destroy me and take my power, still followed me around every day. The other part had been because of Taya's betrayal—which helped lead to that same attack. I hadn't thought there could be any way I'd ever feel comfortable calling that flat my home again.
It was equally possible that nowhere would feel safe for me. At least not anytime soon.
The woman hadn't regained consciousness before being lifted onto a stretcher and taken away by paramedics speaking frantically in hushed tones. All that was left to do was pray that she would wake up, and soon.
As I pushed the wet rag back and forth trying to find the white of my tiles once again, I was on alert, waiting for another strange woman to appear in my kitchen without warning. Hopefully with a little girl in tow.
It would probably give me a heart attack, but there would also be some relief in knowing that the rest of Simon's family was okay. Four nights ago that was what he said. Four nights ago, a vampire master in Greece had decided to attack the family of two of his most valuable lesser magick... employees? I wasn't sure what the right term was there. But the coincidence was impossible to ignore. Four nights ago, I had declared that those of us without the protection of the factions would have a place to call home here in Galway. I declared publicly that I would do my best to keep them safe. Shortly after that, a woman and her daughter had been taken to prove a point. Nadir had reduced them from people to bargaining chips. If he’d ever considered them
It seemed to me like Nadir had known all along about Leda's family and used what I had done as a reason to lash out. Maybe he was trying to prevent those he controlled from trying to do the same as I had.
Maybe it had gotten people killed, not just in Greece but all over Europe. Or, potentially, all over the world.
Or maybe it had just been a coincidence. I could go on telling myself that for at least a little longer. I didn't see how I was going to keep moving forward otherwise.
There was no handbook for this. But in my heart, it felt like Simon and his family were my responsibility now. They had come to me for help. And, considering Simon's ability, there had to be some next step worth taking. It wasn’t like he and I and a few scattered allies could mount an attack on a vampire seethe.
Which left me nowhere
.
By the time I was done wiping the floor, it almost one in the morning. Although my mind was still wide-awake, my body was beginning to feel a little slow and groggy. From the sounds of it, Taya hadn't had any trouble falling asleep.
While I had every intention of crawling into bed and at least trying to get some sleep, I never made it that far. It seemed like there were a million other things to do. I showered for the second time that night and still didn't feel clean. I was sure that woman's blood was still under my fingernails, on my skin. For all I knew, it was a dead woman's blood.
I had Simon's number, but it didn't seem right to call. I didn't have anything to say, anything I could add to the situation to make things better. I didn't feel like I had any words of comfort to offer. I considered driving down to the hospital just to check in, just to be there.
Or calling Tilly to apologize for what had to been a night from hell. I had invited her to stay in hopes of making her feel like a welcome member of the faction and instead she’d been initiated, trial by fire. I made a mental note to call her in the morning. And to call Colin, who had disappeared without saying goodbye as the paramedics worked in my kitchen. He probably already reported back to his mistress that the faction I created was a disaster magnet and probably nothing that she needed to worry about.
There was also a very good chance that it wasn’t the faction that was a disaster, only its leader. It was a responsibility taken on by necessity more than anything else. I wanted to take a stand, and I’d been planning to lean on those who’d been there with me. But most of them had already returned to their own countries, their own lives. They promised to be back by the summit, but none of us had banked on things going bad quite this quickly.
I did still have Tom, I reminded myself. He said his goodbyes that night with the promise to answer if I called. But it wasn’t like there was anything he could've done for me besides replaying the entire night's events over and over alongside me, trying to figure out if there were something specific I could have done better. And would that help now?
There was also Nina, the French healer who had started out as a friend of the woman I still counted as my number one adversary. In all my years in Galway, I’d never realized that the most powerful of the Lesser Magicks in the area was a female leprechaun named Aoife. And that she had been planning to derail the upcoming summit by any means necessary to gain a foothold of power with the factions before the supernatural community was potentially outed to the humans.
Aoife had left the city, and hopefully the country, but I very much doubted she was gone for good. Nina, however, had been happy to cut ties with her friend once she realized how easily Aoife had been willing to kill innocents to reach her goals. And now she was back home, and probably fast asleep.
Still, everything that had just happened probably counted as pretty significant news. I suspected she’d forgive me for waking her, all things considered.
But as I reached for my phone, I found the device already ringing silently. I had quieted it not long before my meeting with Tilly, hoping to stem the flow of distractions for the evening. And then there it was, waiting for me with someone on the other line when I most needed someone to talk to. But the display wasn't showing Nina's name. To my surprise, it was Ethan who was trying to reach out despite the late hour.
How had he known just when to call?
"Hello?"
"Melanie?" Ethan's deep voice rumbled through the phone line, sending a shiver running down my spine. Hearing his voice was already having an effect on me, far more pronounced from our quick text exchange earlier.
"That's me," I answered. "Shouldn't you be sleeping?" I asked, sounding more playful than I felt, still working to the surprise of the late-night phone call. I was pretty sure that the only call that would've made me feel any better in that moment would have been one from my mother, telling me everything would be okay and that she had a plate of cookies waiting at home for me. Not that my adoptive family had any idea anything was wrong. They didn't even know about the bizarre combinations of abilities I'd inherited from my birth parents, or about magick at all.
"I was," Ethan answered, his voice rough. I thought I heard a trace of concern. "But I just received a somewhat disturbing phone call from one of my less pleasant neighbors."
"Okay?"
I really had no idea where he was going with that train of thought. Neighbors? I didn't even know anything about where Ethan lived, other than it was somewhere in Dublin near the river. I couldn't envision any reason why he'd feel the need to call me about some sort of local squabble at this hour. I wanted to hope that maybe it was him that had wanted someone to talk to in the wee, small hours of the night, and that he had thought to call me before anyone else. But I had a sinking feeling in my gut that I knew what it was about.
"The Mistress of Dublin made it clear to me after Galway that she was unconcerned about the goings-on in your city. I got the impression that she thought it was almost quaint that those without the protection or the ability of the greater magicks would make a power play right before the largest gathering of our kinds and generations. After tonight, she no longer finds your actions cute. Or acceptable. At least, that was what I took away from the rambling phone call I just had to sit through. This isn't good, Melanie."
Still silent, I replay everything Ethan had just told me, trying to figure out what had changed. When I had announced the creation of our faction, we hadn't exactly received a standing ovation from the existing powers within Ireland. But there had been begrudging acceptance from everyone whose opinions mattered, those who also led factions in this country, both in the North and the South.
"What does what happened tonight have to do with Dublin's vampires, or anyone else? How much do you even know about what happened here tonight?"
"Cooper filled me in."
Right. "And I'm guessing Colin is the one who got his mistress up to speed?"
Ethan didn't bother answering. I’d known the reason he'd left Cooper in Galway, and the reason that Colin was in the city at all. They weren’t part of my faction, and I'd known that. I guess I forgot that they were essentially spies even if well-intentioned on Cooper's part.
"Okay, so I did something to piss off Dublin's mistress?" I asked. "I’d really like to start calling her something else, by the way. All of this ominous, nameless shit is starting to get frustrating."
Everything was starting to get frustrating, and it had to have been clear that I felt that way by how quickly my tone shifted. I didn't want to take out any of this on Ethan, or anyone else. What I really wanted to do was drive my fist into the drywall. But, unlike in the movies where tough guys punched holes in their homes, I would have just ended up with a broken hand, and having to drink my own blood in order to heal myself.
"Her name isn't important. What matters now is that you no longer have her support."
"One, I'm guessing that means that you don't know her name either. And, two, why exactly? Please assume that I'm completely new to this and have no idea what the hell is going on right now."
"From what I can make of things, you've gone and pissed off some other vampire and made a mess for everyone. And no, I don't know her name. She’s the Mistress of Dublin, she’s hundreds and hundreds of years old, and she chooses not to share her name with anyone. I suspect she thinks it makes her seem more mysterious, but mostly I find it pretentious. And Melanie, you need to listen to me, none of that matters now. You're sheltering a fugitive and getting involved where you'd be better off staying out of things."
"A fugitive?" I scoffed. "You mean the bleeding woman who was dropped off in my kitchen earlier tonight? After being tortured!" I was just about yelling by then; it was a miracle I hadn’t woken Taya.
"You interfered in business that does not concern your faction," Ethan said slowly. His voice sounded strained; even he didn't believe what he was telling me. "And now some master from God-knows-where is demanding that Dublin's Mistress sort out her territory."
"Galway isn't her territory. It's mine. Ours. And someone showed up here today asking for help. What exactly would you have had me do?"
Ethan sighed. "Exactly what you did do. If it'd been me, I would've done the same thing. I just wish you had a better handle on what you were getting into before deciding to get involved."
I wanted to scream that I had never decided to get involved in any of this. It had all been thrust on top of me before I had a chance to escape. But I kept my mouth shut. Because even if so much of what happened had been outside of my control, now that I was in the middle of things and there were people who genuinely needed my help, it was far too late to retreat. If anything, I wished I'd have more control over all of this. That I'd been the one to make the call that led Simon and his sister to Galway. That I'd been able to help make escape plans, and plan a rescue.
Moving forward, there was absolutely nothing that said I couldn't start to make those decisions for myself. I could stop letting things happen to me and start taking control for myself and the people I wanted to help.
"So where does this leave me?" I asked. "What now? You just called as a warning?"
"I called as a heads up. Without the support of Ireland's vampires, the validity of your faction only gets more tenuous. I have no idea if or when the vampires will retaliate, but if their faction is willing to wait until the summit to make it clear to everyone that they do not support what you're trying to do, it's only going to get harder to have anyone take your faction seriously. Right now, I suspect that the Mistress of Dublin could have one of her lackeys snap your neck and the vampires of Europe would only cheer."
Magic In My Soul Page 3