“Hey, Annette.” Jack approached her warmly and they hugged.
“I’m so sorry about Jonah.” Her face turned solemn. “He was a wonderful person.”
“Yes, he was,” he whispered, hurt still lacing his voice. “These are my friends, Amy and …” He frowned, not knowing what to call me.
“Celeste,” I finished for him.
“Right,” he said.
“Nice to meet you all,” she greeted as she shook our hands. I couldn’t tell what kind of supernatural she was, and it was driving me crazy. I wanted to say witch, because it was the only thing that made sense, but I didn’t feel any magic.
“We’re here because we need some information that we’re hoping you might be able to shed some light on,” Jackson continued. “About the vampire Elders.”
Her smile wavered. “Oh,” was all she said.
The guys at the bar must have been right. Everyone in the supernatural community must know what’s going on. Even Annette, from the looks of it. Only my persona Celeste was living under a rock.
“Is that an Oh no, or an Oh yes, I can help you?” Amy jumped in. “Because you don’t look so confident right now.”
Annette bit her lower lip. “I’m sorry. This is about that Luna, Mackenzie Grey, isn’t it?”
I shut my eyes ever so slowly. If I wasn’t famous before, I was now. Did these vamps have the whole damn world looking for me?
“Does it matter?” Jackson said. “Your job is not to choose sides, Annette, just to record history.”
She had the good sense to look embarrassed. She reddened. “I was visited by Isaac.”
“The Elder?!” I stepped forward a little too aggressively.
Annette stumbled back. “Yes. He wanted my records on her, but unfortunately, I don’t have much. Most of what I did have had already been requested and was shipped out.”
That made me do a double take. “What do you mean, had been requested?”
“It happens. The West Coast archivist requested all files associated with Mackenzie Grey a few months ago, so there was nothing to give him.”
My frantic gaze turned to Jackson and Amy, and my heart pounded wildly in my chest. I turned back to Annette. “Why would the archivist request my—Mackenzie’s files?” I quickly corrected.
She shrugged. “Someone must have asked for them—”
“Who?!” I demanded.
Her eyes widened, shocked. “I don’t know.”
Amy’s soft hand went to my arm and she pulled me back. I’d been inching forward.
“Maybe we’re getting off track,” Jackson said. “Did Isaac say why he wanted her files?”
Annette shook her head, her eyes gliding to me and then to Jack. “He asked about a cure for vampirism. If it had ever happened before. I told him it’s never been done, that it was impossible, but that there had once been a cure for a warlock.”
That caught my attention. Bobby told me he’d reverse engineered that cure to make it work for a vampire, and then told me the story about the warlock who wanted to be human. I’d dumbly assumed he could just stop practicing magic, but Bobby schooled me that a witch or warlock does not simply stop practicing. In his words, it was like what blood was to vampires. They craved the magic, feeding from it. If they stopped, they died. The need for more would drive them mad.
“I know that story,” I said dismissively. “Did you give him that file?”
She nodded.
“What could they want with the cure?” Amy said, running a hand through her hair, her frustration evident.
Annette frowned. “Are you sure you know the whole story?”
“Yeah,” I scoffed. “A warlock wants to be human and creates a cure. Boom. He does it and lives happily ever after.”
“No, that’s not the full story,” Annette corrected, and the blood in my veins ran ice cold. “Waldo Wagner’s intention was to turn human, and he did for a time. He’d created the cure, but there was a binding element that he accidentally added after the fact, that gave him the opposite effect. It made him immortal.”
“Like a vampire?” Jackson asked.
She shook her head. “No. Vampires can die with a stake to the heart, fire, decapitation, or having their heart ripped out, so they’re not truly immortal. What Waldo created was true immortality. Where nothing could hurt him.”
“Wait a minute …” I raised my hand up. “You mean to tell me this dude still lives to this day? And he’s unkillable?”
“Exactly,” Annette answered primly.
“Son of a bitch,” I whispered, looking to my two partners in crime.
It seemed like we just solved our mystery.
7
We sped home to beat the clock before our four hours were up. Although our eyes were focused on the dashboard clock, our mind raced with possibilities. We threw around theories, each sparking a new wrinkle. It seemed painfully obvious what was going on; the Elders wanted to replicate what Waldo Wagner did. And since I had the cure, I was the obstacle standing in their way. That hearing was a load of shit from the very beginning. They never planned to let Amy take the cure, because the minute they heard about it, they planned on taking it for themselves. How they planned on splitting it between all of them was beyond me, but I didn’t care. What mattered now was that we were ten steps ahead of them. Now the real planning started.
We walked into the house just in the nick of time. Bobby was asleep, so we convened in the kitchen, brewing a pot of coffee to fortify our plotting.
“We need to get our hands on Waldo Wagner’s file, and then we need to find out what the binding element was,” I said as I started to make the coffee.
“Agreed. We can’t make the same mistake,” Jackson replied as he ran his hands through his hair. I could tell he was tired.
“Should we tell Lucian?” Amy suggested. “If he knew what they really wanted to do, he’d be against it.”
I was still a little salty with Lucian, and didn’t trust him a hundred percent. He should have been on our side from the very beginning.
“We should use Damon,” I suggested. “Hold off on Lucian for now.”
I debated whether to bring up the vampire hunter. This would be the prime time and a perfect excuse. These Elders were crossing a line. Waldo did it on accident, and was probably miserable since all he wanted was to be human. But these vamps just wanted more power, motivated by nothing other than selfish greed. They were a danger not just to the vampires, but to other supernatural communities as well. They must be stopped.
“We can trust him, Kenz,” Amy argued. “You don’t know the pressure he’s under. Even though he had orders to follow, he took care of me and made sure I was okay.”
I never doubted he would look out for her, but in my gut, it just wasn’t enough. “Not yet,” I reiterated. “If we tell Damon what the Elders plan to do, he’ll be pissed. It’ll give them more power than they already have, and if we’re lucky, he might tell a few of his friends who agree with him.”
“And if he doesn’t?” Jackson asked.
The blissful aroma of freshly-brewed coffee permeated the kitchen and I poured myself a cup before handing the pot over to Amy.
“Then we make him tell them,” I said, blowing the steam away in my cup. “But I have a feeling he will. From the sounds of it, the Elders have had their thumbs on the vamps for quite a while now, and he wants to get out from under it. I can guarantee Damon’s not the only one.”
“How do we get this information to him?” Amy asked as she took a sip.
“You’ll have to approach him,” I proposed, nodding to her. “It has to come from another vampire, and who better than you? The one they captured and refused the cure.”
While they marinated on the information, I had enough time to finish my first cup of coffee. I poured myself another cup, deciding I would probably stay up tonight.
“You can find him at The Third Eye again,” I declared. “He and his friend Carlos are staking out the place, keeping an eye
out for me. Carlos is not on our side, so you’ll have to approach Damon when he’s alone. It’s best if I stay away, since they have two Fae with them who are working their magic to look for me.”
“I’ll go with her,” Jackson offered. “I noticed Malakai was one of the Fae. Since when were you on his shit list?”
I chuckled. “I’m not. He pegged me from the very beginning, but kept quiet. He’s a friend.”
“Nice.” Jack nodded.
I bit my lip and eyed them, deciding whether to broach the subject of the vampire hunter again. Jackson hadn’t brought up the subject of a background check, but now was as good a time as any to dive into that dilemma. Especially considering what we just learned.
“What do you guys think about me contacting the hunter?” I posed cautiously, tapping a finger on the side of my coffee cup.
“You want to get the vampire hunter involved?” Amy arched a pierced brow. “That’s kind of a nuclear option, don’t you think?”
“This is sort of a nuclear situation,” I grunted. “The Elders want to use the cure to make themselves invincible. If they get their hands on it, it’s game over. They could start a war with the wolves – with any faction, really – and wipe us off the map. You saw the gleam in Isaac’s eyes. He’s dangerous.”
“What if it’s only Isaac?” Amy countered. “Stella seemed uninterested, and the oldies were just Lycan haters. Though, to be fair, I would have included Ephraim in with Isaac, if you hadn’t killed him.”
She had a point. Isaac was the one who seemed most interested, aside from Ephraim. “I wouldn’t knock Stella off the board just yet. If Isaac and Ephraim were in on this together, Isaac will need a new partner-in-crime. He might look to her.”
Jackson rubbed his tired eyes. “Either way, I think we need to inform your father, Kenz. He needs to know.”
Shit, Alexander.
I pulled out my cell phone and looked at the missed calls. I had over twenty, all from Scotland. He must be freaking out. I showed them my phone.
“Yikes,” Amy grimaced. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s already on a plane headed this way.”
I let my head fall on the counter, my forehead slamming onto the marble. “I had my phone on silent,” I mumbled.
“We’ll leave you to call your father.” Jackson patted me on the back sympathetically. “I’ll run a background on our hunter first thing in the morning.”
“Thanks,” I muttered, and they quietly exited the kitchen.
I huffed out a loud breath, dreading the phone call I needed to make. I dialed the number and let it ring. Surprisingly, it rang only a couple times before he answered.
“Mackenzie!” I imagined him saying my name with a glower. “Nice of ye to call me back.”
“I’m so sorry, Alexander. I got caught up in a lead and my phone was on silent. Honestly, there’s just no excuse.”
He was silent for a moment. “Ye cannae do this to me, Mackenzie. I thought something happened to ye. I was going out of my bloody mind.”
My heart ached for the suffering I put him through. Unintentionally, of course. I couldn’t imagine being an ocean away and knowing something was wrong with him, and there was nothing I could do to help. That thought made me shiver. Alexander was my family. I was all he had left besides granny, but their relationship was still rocky. He couldn’t lose me.
“I won’t do it again,” I whispered into the phone as I shut my eyes. “I promise.”
“Thank ye,” he sighed in relief.
“I have news that I think you need to hear,” I started. “I figured out why I’m being targeted so aggressively by the vampires. They want the cure. Have you heard the story of the warlock Waldo Wagner?”
“No, I have nae.”
I took a deep breath and told him the whole story from beginning to end, including the fact that Isaac went to the archivist to pull Waldo’s file. What I decided to keep from Alexander was the fact that someone had already pulled mine. That was a tidbit I’d investigate at a later date. One problem at a time.
“Our theory is that they’re trying to figure out the binding element Waldo accidentally used in his cure that turned it to an immortality potion, and that they’re trying to recreate it. All of which leads back to me, since I stole the cure and they’re hunting me to get it back.”
“Ye cannae let them have it, Mackenzie,” Alexander demanded. “This could start a war between our people.”
“I know,” I breathed. “But the cure is safe, so even if they find me, they won’t find the cure.”
“Let’s hope not.”
“Were you able to talk to Lucian? Did he tell you anything?” The last time I spoke to Alexander, I asked him to call Lucian and get as much information as possible. I thought maybe he’d talk to his best friend, since he sure as hell wasn’t talking to me.
“Sorry, darling, but he’s nae talking.”
“Are you fuckin’ kidding me?” I yelled into the empty kitchen. “He won’t even talk to you?”
“I think he’s under surveillance. I don think he can talk,” he answered. “But Lucian will nae do anything to hurt ye—”
“He almost killed me!” I shouted without thinking. The day we fought in the cathedral, I knew I wouldn’t win in a fight against Lucian. Vampires were strong, and he had centuries of experience under his belt. Even though I knew he wouldn’t hurt me, I figured he would knock me around a bit to teach me a lesson and call it a day. Except he came out of the gate swinging, and swinging hard. He didn’t hold back, and in that split second when his hands were wrapped around my neck, I feared for my life. I couldn’t believe it was at the hands of Lucian.
“Nae, Lucian—” Alexander mumbled.
“Yes, Lucian. If my friend hadn’t been there to bust out the windows of the church and let the light stream in, I wouldn’t be here talking to you.” And that was the cold, hard truth.
There wasn’t much to discuss after that conversation stopper. Alexander got quiet and didn’t know what to say. What could he say? How did you choose between your lifelong best friend and the daughter you just met? The choice should be obvious, and although I knew in the end he would choose me, it didn’t make it any easier. I didn’t envy his position. Soon after, we said our goodbyes and ended the call, promising to talk again soon.
I tossed my phone onto the counter, feeling completely drained. I didn’t expect the conversation to take that turn, or for me to feel the way I did about Lucian. I hadn’t realized how much it bothered me. It was just something I never expected—not from him.
With those final thoughts, I gathered my things, jumped off the stool, and dragged my tired ass to bed. I’d worry about everything tomorrow.
It was noon and the sun was streaming into the bedroom when my eyes finally popped open. While this bed was comfy, I really missed my apartment. Hell, I missed my job, my life. Speaking of my job, I should probably call Michaels. Or go to the SIU, since I had a new face.
I rolled out of bed and trudged into the bathroom to wash my face and brush my teeth. When I was done, I made my way downstairs where I found Jackson in the living room with a laptop, sprawled on the couch.
“Morning,” I grumbled as I shuffled in.
“Good afternoon,” he corrected.
“Whatever. Where’s the coffee?”
He rolled his eyes. “Haven’t you had enough? That shit will rot your stomach.”
“That computer will rot your brain, but you don’t hear me complaining,” I countered, turning to head to the kitchen.
You could say many things to me, but never, and I mean never, talk about my coffee. I’ll cut a bitch.
“It’ll give you yellow teeth!” he yelled at my back.
“I use whitening strips!” I called over my shoulder and kept walking.
I turned the coffee maker on and waited as the smell of percolating coffee consumed the kitchen. Bobby had left a few more vials of the cloaking spell potions for me on the counter, which led me to believe
he’d already left for the day.
I put my blond hair up in a messy bun and blew my bangs away from my eyes. They were starting to get on my nerves, and I looked forward to getting my old self back.
When the coffee was done, I poured myself a cup and went into the living room to chat with Jackson.
“So, whatcha’ doing?”
“Looking into our hunter,” he answered, his eyes glued to the screen. “His background is squeaky clean. Not even a parking ticket.”
“That’s bullshit,” I scoffed. “That guy got a judge to sign off on some very legit-looking court docs to get me out of lock-up, and it was all a scam. He’s a pro. Unless he’s scrubbed his history clean, he must have some hiccup down the road.”
“None that I can see. At least, not in the human world. And since he’s human, that’s all we got.” Jackson shrugged.
“Then our best bet is to contact him,” I said. “Alexander says we can’t trust hunters, but I think he’ll be a good asset, considering what we’re up against.”
“I think the decision should be up to Amy,” Jackson refuted. “It’s her life on the line.”
I hadn’t thought about that. If we worked with the hunter, he promised to keep Amy safe, but could we trust him? Alexander insinuated we couldn’t, but Jack had a point. Ultimately, Amy should have the final say.
“Speaking of your woman,” I smirked, “how is that going?”
He froze. “What do you mean?”
“You know, are you guys on, off, or is there a dimmer switch?”
“Are you for real right now?” he deadpanned.
“As a heart attack.” I crossed my heart. “I noticed you guys aren’t sharing a room.”
“You’re so damn nosy.” He lowered his head and looked back at the computer screen. “Ask her.”
“Pfft, I’m asking you. Now spill.”
Jackson looked as if he were about to tear my head off. His nostrils flared and he cracked his knuckles in annoyance. “We’re on, if you must know. But she needs her own room to sleep in during the day.”
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