I watch Noah Miles’s broad back as he retreats to our guesthouse’s back entrance. The way he moves tells me he’s waiting on me to follow. Slow, careful, on full alert. One thing I can say about him: When he makes a vow, he damn well means every solemn word of it. A vow to protect me, keep me safe, no matter the cost. This he made to Eli, back in Edinburgh when the very real threat of the Black Fallen killing all of us lingered.
“He knew my name,” I say to Noah’s back as we stand at the door.
Noah’s shoulders rise and fall, as though he’s taking in a long, exaggerated breath. “That really doesn’t surprise me, Poe.” He glances back at me. One eyebrow lifts. “At all.”
I move ahead of him and through the door. “Just saying.”
Inside, I find the switch on the wall and flip it on. The light illuminates a small kitchen area. I move to the hallway and flip another switch. It shines on a staircase, and I head up. At the top, I find a corridor with doors. I throw open the first one and hit the light. Big bed. Fireplace. Terrace overlooking Montague Row. I throw my pack onto the fluffy pink duvet and open it, withdrawing a leather case. I open it and stare down at my cache of pointy little weapons.
“I’ll stay on the first floor,” Noah yells up.
“Yeah, okay,” I answer absentmindedly. I pull off my leather jacket and toss it on the bed, too, leaving just my black leather vest on. I truly prefer nice soft cotton, but it can’t hold my blades like leather can. Swiftly, I remove and secure on my person multiple silver daggers, knives, dirks. In my vest, the waist of my jeans, front and back. Grasping the lightweight leather holster, I push my shoulder through and secure the strap around my waist. I snug it tight. Then I eye the one remaining weapon I have.
Right now the most important.
My scatha.
What’s that? you ask. Well, in the wise words of the great Inigo Montoya, let me s’plain. From the beginning.
When I think of who I used to be, it seems as though I’m looking at someone else in an old high school yearbook or old photo album. I barely recognize myself. The line separating my old life and this one is hazy, muddled, and most of the time I don’t know if I want either one of them anymore, if given the choice. I feel icy cold inside now. Ever since Eli’s death.
In my full-blown human days, I used to be a juvenile delinquent. Then I found my mom murdered, and it set me right. With the help of loving surrogate grandparents, albeit root doctors, I became a successful tattoo artist and businesswoman. I raised my baby brother, Seth, to near adulthood. My business thrived.
Then the vampires descended upon first my brother, then me. Some vampires good. Some very, very bad.
One . . . perfect. But he’s gone now. Eli. My fiancé. He was killed by a Black Fallen—a fallen angel whose soul is darkened by the most evil of magic. My friend Victorian Arcos, a powerful Strigoi vampire, was killed, too, by a Black Fallen. The Fallen were taking over Edinburgh, seeking complete mortal power, and killing a lot of innocents to do it. They sought an ancient book of dark magic, and then, well, WUP got in their way. Eli and Vic especially. God, I’ve never felt so out of control in my life as when those fuckers took Eli and Vic away from me.
Yet Gawan Conwyk, a thousand-year-old Pictish warrior and swordsman, has given me a shred of hope that maybe, just maybe, they’re not so dead after all. Once an Earthbound angel, Gawan earned his mortality by offering himself as a sacrifice to save a mortal’s life. Not only is he wicked fast and lethal with the blade, but he knows things the rest of us don’t. He knows about Heaven, Hell, and in between. According to his theory, Eli and Victorian might just be suffering in an alternative plane akin to Hell itself. Or purgatory. I’m not sure I believe it just yet. In my heart, I feel emptiness. I don’t feel Eli there anymore. I think I’d feel him inside me, were he still alive. Gawan, though, knows it’s possible. That the Fallen would have thought it more torturous to send them there, to a realm where they have no control, vs. simply killing them. Yet I can’t ignore the emptiness I feel, too.
I feel . . . nothing. Two hours ago, leaving Edinburgh, I had hope. Where did it go? Even Athios, the wrongly accused Black Fallen who saved me and turned out to be not such a bad guy after all, encouraged me. But I feel a hole inside me. A gaping, lifeless, aching hole. Now that I’ve lost Eli, I only have Seth, my surrogate Gullah grandparents who raised me, Nyx, my friend and coowner of my ink shop, Inksomnia, and, well, Eli’s family. And Noah.
With so many to love, why do I feel so cold and empty?
I pick up the scatha. It’s an ancient Pict weapon, fashioned sort of like a combination handgun/crossbow. It has cartridges the size of a ChapStick container filled with mystical holy water from St. Bueno’s Well. Once I’m in that weird, hellish alternative plane of a world, I can obliterate anything that comes near me with it.
And I have to do it alone.
I tuck the scatha into the holster, shrug my leather jacket back on, and zip it up to my neck. Just as I turn to head out, I pull up short. Noah’s standing there. Staring.
“Where do you think you’re going?” he asks.
I meet his silvery gaze. “Out.”
Noah’s face hardens. “Ri, it’s only me and you here. Not the whole team, just us. We have some rogue vampires to take care of, remember?”
“I already took care of one by myself.” I go to move past him. “Your turn.”
His muscular arm juts out and braces against the doorjamb, catching me right at the throat. I pull up short, and our faces are inches apart, and I stare into his eyes. Before Noah was a vampire, he was a cunning soldier in the Revolutionary War. He may have the most beautifully carved-from-stone face, mesmerizing mercury eyes, and sun-bleached dreadlocks, but Noah is clever as hell. He misses nothing. And when he’s got your back, he’s got it.
Even when you don’t want him to.
Which means I gotta do what I gotta do, too.
Noah’s pupils dilate just before my thoughts reach his.
I give a dismal grin. Too late, my friend. Paralysis. I give this command to Noah in my mind. He goes absolutely, rigidly still. Rigor mortis still. His facial muscles freeze. His arm is still braced against the doorjamb. But I know he hears me.
“I have to try this,” I tell him. His eyes are focused on me, and he might even see me. But he can’t move. Not a solid inch. That’s one tendency I’ve mastered over almost all vampires I come in contact with. Mind control.
Pisses them all off.
“I’m taking the scatha and going to St. Bueno’s Well,” I tell him. “Gawan said the ground’s hallowed there, and old as Heaven and Hell itself. A portal to a place Eli and Vic might be.” I stroke his chin with my forefinger. “He said I have to go in alone.” I close-mouth kiss him on his lips. “I promise I’ll be safe. And back ASAP. Then we’ll kick some more vampire ass. Promise.”
I stare into Noah’s eyes for a few seconds longer. I see them flash a bit, darken to stormy gray, and I know inside, he is boiling friggin’ mad as hell. At me for going, and at me for being stronger at mind control than he is. With a final glance, I duck under his arm, jog downstairs, and head out into the night.
I’m in the narrow close behind the guesthouse, where I’d killed the vampire earlier, and I stop a second. Tying my hair up into a ponytail, I take a deep breath and think. It’s close to eleven p.m. I fish my cell phone from my rear pocket, pull up Google Maps, and check out my route. St. Bueno’s isn’t on any map, and it’s not in any tourist book, either. But Gawan Conwyk of Castle Grimm told me how to get there. And according to the map, I need to highjack some wheels. I could hike it, but, eh. Why bother when I can drive? It would be a pain in the ass to run with all my blades flapping all over the place anyway. Besides, I’m edgy. Anxious to find Eli, or at least a trace of him. I’d probably fall and impale myself.