The Unhallowed (Book Five in the Witch Hunter Saga)

  The witch shook her head, but he could see it in her eyes before she even moved. There was nothing. Nothing… There had to be a witch out there who could help her. If he could just get to Eleanor…

  “I called Alex,” Gabby declared before he could say anything. “I’ve told him everything.”

  “You what?” he exclaimed.

  “You’ve got twelve hours to get your shit together,” she said.

  The only reason Gabby would have called Isobel’s brother was if she… No, there had to be a way. Nothing was permanent. Witches had loopholes and antidotes for everything.

  “No!” he cried. “You can’t let her die. You have to do something! There has to be a witch out there who could—”

  “Do you think I want her to die?” she practically shouted at him. “I can’t find a way to stop it, Nye. Not in time. Alex deserves to be here. He deserves to know what’s happening to his sister.”

  “Not in time?”

  She sighed and lowered her gaze. “It’s moving fast. I can feel it from here…”

  “This can’t be happening,” he murmured. “It can’t.”

  He cared deeply for Isobel, there was no use denying it, but love? Love was the ultimate euphoria for a vampire, and it would consume him to the point of addiction if he let it. It would be a constant fight not to bite her again, to taste her sweet blood… Was all that pain worth it? Not his pain…hers.

  Closing his eyes, he thought about it for a moment. He’d admitted it several times, but he hadn’t actually said the words.

  Yeah…he was in love with Isobel. Perhaps he should tell her before it was too late.

  For the second time in as many months, Alex stood at Heathrow Airport on the outskirts of London, hauling his suitcase through the concourse.

  And it was the second time he’d dropped everything to come save his sister from vampires getting her involved in their stupid revenge plots. The ironic part? He was a vampire.

  He’d sacrificed everything to save Isobel and his friends from the fae hybrid Aed. Allowing Gabby to turn him into a founding vampire, the strongest of their kind, he’d been the only creature able to put the guy down for good. It was either him or Isobel, and there was no hesitation. No way in hell was he allowing his sister to throw away her humanity and everything she’d worked for in Oxford to become…this.

  Being a vampire, a truly immortal vampire, wasn’t a picnic. It was the shittiest thing he’d ever had to deal with. Everywhere he looked, a human snack bar was waiting for him to chow down. He hadn’t understood before how his friend Zac had felt with it every day. Zac had always been an inch from losing it, but now Alex understood how painful it was.

  The hunger for blood was so strong that sometimes it was hard to resist, but resist he did. Gabby had said it was because he’d been so kind in his human life. He scoffed as the busy airport heaved around him. Some afterlife.

  Everything was a million times sharper than he was used to—sight, smell, sound, feelings—like the ultimate high-definition television. It didn’t take much to piss him off lately, so when he got that call from Gabby less than a day ago, he’d almost flown right off the handle.

  Isobel had gotten herself tangled with that upstart Nye, and now she was cursed by a witch who had a grudge against the spy. Cursed! When he got to the mansion, he would snap the vampire’s neck, and that was being lenient.

  The taxi ride to Hampstead took the best part of an hour. Peak hour was just hitting as they pulled up out the front of the house, so the drive took less time than usual.

  Slamming the door closed, he pulled his suitcase up the path behind him, his vampire senses picking up the tang of magic in the yard. Gabby had said she’d cast about a million wards out here to keep the Unhallowed witches—or were they wraiths?—out.

  As he opened the front door and stepped into the foyer, he could sense movement upstairs. Dropping his case, he flew through the house and smashed his way into the study.

  His gaze met Nye’s, and an unbelievable surge of anger flared inside him. Shooting forward, he fisted his hands into the front of Nye’s shirt and shoved him against the wall with enough strength that the plaster cracked.

  “What have you done to her?” he snarled. “If she dies, I will rip you apart.”

  “Alex!” Gabby cried from somewhere far away. “Calm down.”

  He wasn’t listening, his gaze firmly set on the vampire in front of him. “You can understand how important the first few years are for shaping who a vampire is to become, Nye. You’re not helping by seducing my sister.”

  “I care for her,” Nye snarled. “I did what I could to protect her. By the time she arrived, it was already too late to send her away.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “I’m trying to lead this city,” Nye said, shoving him hard enough that his grip loosened. “I have eyes on me all the time, and none of them are good, Alex. They all want the power I now have, and they’d do anything to get it. I kept her here so I could save her from this.”

  “And you got her cursed anyway!” Alex roared.

  Nye stepped up into Alex’s face and stared him down. “I won’t rest until I find a way to save her.”

  “You love her. So that’s what this is about, huh? Your crazy ex has resurrected herself and is going after my sister to get back at you. If you’d just kept it in your pants back in Oxford, then she wouldn’t have come here at all!”

  “She came here to see you!” Nye roared. “If you hadn’t left without telling her, then she wouldn’t have come.”

  “Stop it!” Gabby shrieked, shoving between them. Squeezing between the two men, she tried to push them apart, but they were like marble statues. They didn’t budge an inch.

  “It doesn’t matter how she got here,” she went on. “It doesn’t matter. We need to find a way to buy us some time.”

  “But you said…” Nye began, glancing at her.

  “I know, but if there’s a way to slow the spread, then it might give us the time to find a cure.”

  “Have you tried vampire blood?” Alex asked.

  “It won’t work,” Nye declared, glaring at him. “Our blood only heals physical wounds, not magical ones.”

  “Besides,” Gabby added. “If she dies with vampire blood in her system, she’ll turn…”

  “I don’t know about you, but I’d like to preserve her humanity at all costs,” Nye snapped. “Neither of us had a choice. Vampirism isn’t a cure all.”

  “I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy,” Alex fired back just as quickly.

  “Fighting about it isn’t solving anything,” Gabby interjected. Turning to Alex, she said, “You should go see her.”

  Nodding, Alex backed away from the man who’d gotten his sister into this mess. This wasn’t over between them, not by a long shot. Nye was a smart guy, so he’d understand that this was only the beginning. They had an eternity to hate one another, after all.

  Glancing at him, Alex delivered a warning, and if he were smart enough, the spy would heed it. “If you care for her like you claim, you’ll leave her alone. For good.”

  Nye’s expression didn’t change, but Alex knew he’d hit him where it hurt the most. He could see it in everything the spy did…he was in love with his sister, and Alex didn’t know what the hell he thought about that. Isobel didn’t belong in this world.

  Opening the door to his sister’s room, he stepped inside.

  Instantly, he sensed her lying on the bed, her breathing shallow as she slept soundly. Not even the fight down the hall had roused her.

  Sitting beside her, Alex pulled her hand into his and sighed. He could dwell on whose fault it was as much as he wanted, but it didn’t change the fact that what’s done is done. Right now, they had to find a way to remove the curse before it was too late.

  Her eyes fluttered open, and she stared at him for what felt like an age before she spoke. “Alex?”

  “The one and only.”

  “What are you doing here?
”

  “Don’t sound so surprised,” he replied with a smile. “You’re my big sister.”

  Isobel pushed herself up so that she sat next to him, her fingers tightening around his. “Gabby must’ve told you because no way in hell Nye would’ve squealed.”

  “Yeah, what’s up with that?” he asked, raising his eyebrows. “Seriously?”

  “Shut up,” she drawled. “Like you have immaculate taste in women.”

  “But a vampire, Izzy? What happened to having a family?”

  “Who said I wanted to squeeze a baby out of my vagina?” She rolled her eyes.

  “Gross.”

  They sat in silence for a while, neither of them knowing what to say considering the weight that was currently hanging over their heads.

  “They can’t find a way to stop it, can they?” Isobel asked, closing her eyes. “That’s why you came back.”

  “Don’t say that,” he said, pulling her in for a hug. “Just don’t.”

  “I won’t say it if you don’t give me false hope,” she retorted, her voice wavering.

  Alex stroked her hair, listening to her heart beating inside her chest and her tight breaths. She was trying not to cry.

  “Whatever happens, I’m going to make them pay,” he whispered. “Every single one of them.”

  Chapter 16

  Nye stared down at the bloody remains of Sabine and wrinkled his nose.

  Whoever killed the poor girl hadn’t been elegant about it. Her throat had been torn open and her body drained by a sloppy eater—blood was splattered and smeared everywhere, the little flat she’d lived and worked in covered with the stuff.

  The whole place was set up as one massive altar with candles, runes, crystals, and herbs littered everywhere. A large bookcase sat against one wall, overflowing with jars full of potions, dried herbs, and all kinds of ingredients the witch had used to make the bullshit potions she’d sold to unscrupulous humans desperate for some kind of cure all to their mundane problems. Considering the roll of fifty-pound notes he’d found stashed in a corner, she was raking it in with her fakery. Ironic considering she was the real deal, and he’d paid her well over the years. Whatever did she spend her money on?

  “It could’ve been another one of those zombies,” Alex said, his gaze running over the shelves of tinctures.

  “Perhaps,” Nye replied. “There isn’t any solid proof, and the neighbor didn’t hear a thing. The one that attacked the mansion had no wits about it.”

  “Then someone might’ve compelled her to forget.”

  Nye snorted and turned away from Sabine’s corpse. If that was the case, then the Unhallowed had a living, breathing, sane vampire working for them, which didn’t bode well. With every minute that passed, this predicament was getting more out of control.

  “So what now, Your Majesty?” the founder asked with an air of sarcasm.

  Nye rolled his eyes and picked up Sabine’s grimoire. Flipping through the pages, he wondered if she had anyone left to give it to. She wasn’t aligned to any coven he knew of. Another tome for Gabby’s shelves perhaps.

  “Have you been practicing your compulsion?” he asked Alex as he snapped the book shut.

  The vampire shrugged. “A little.”

  With no leads on who killed Sabine, there was nothing else for them do but wait for Gabby, so the two vampires could pay a few insubordinate vampires a visit. Since Alex was a founder, he could compel vampires…a very handy skill to have at one’s disposal. With the London vampires united, they could focus all their energy on Isobel and the Unhallowed.

  “Then it may be in our best interests to squash a few annoying vampires,” Nye said, glancing at him. “While the going is good.”

  Alex scowled. “Why should I help you cement your power? What’s stopping me from telling them to rip you to pieces?”

  “Your sister,” Nye replied.

  “Who you will leave alone.”

  “Even if I sever ties, they won’t stop. It’s much too late to cut and run, Alex. Besides, she’s tied more closely to you than she is to me.” Nye slipped the grimoire under his arm. “Isobel is known now. If she’s not used to get to me, she’ll be used to get to you. The more secure my rule of the London vampires is, the better I can protect her.”

  “Compulsion to get people to follow you?” Alex rolled his eyes.

  “I don’t have time to do it the right way,” he shot back. “We both want the same thing, Alex.”

  “I don’t understand how she could have any feelings toward you,” Alex muttered, pushing past him.

  Too tired to think of a comeback, Nye narrowed his eyes and followed him outside to the car. Neither could he.

  When they returned to the mansion, Gabby was still buried in her grimoires, dwarfed behind the mahogany desk.

  Nye knelt before her and pried the book from her tired fingers, setting it on the smallest pile.

  “Have you slept?” Alex asked, leaning against the desk.

  The witch shook her head. “Not really. I don’t have time to sleep.”

  “Have you made any progress since we left?” Nye prompted, rising to his feet.

  “This,” Gabby said, plucking a piece of paper from between the pages of a grimoire.

  “That’s the symbol the Unhallowed put on the door to lure their creature,” Nye said warily as she placed it on the desk. “What’s that got to do with anything?”

  “A great deal,” she replied. “It’s more than a tether. It’s a map.”

  Alex leaned over the desk and peered at the markings. “How do you figure that? It looks like a bunch of scribbles if you ask me.”

  “Here,” Gabby began, tracing her finger over the lines. “I didn’t see it at first, but it’s like one of those Magic Eye puzzles.”

  “Great,” Nye scoffed. “Another witchy puzzle.”

  “These signify ley lines,” she went on, ignoring his quip. “The mark at the bottom is for resurrection, which you were right about, but it also gives us a clue as to where the Unhallowed might be…or at least, where they got the power to cast the spell.”

  “Got the power? They’re already witches,” Alex said, his brow furrowing.

  “They were once,” Nye said. “But now they’re something nastier.”

  “Wraiths,” Gabby said simply. “They need a power source to do any significant spell work, and ley lines are an easy mark.”

  Alex still didn’t quite understand. “What’s a ley line?”

  “Ley lines circle the earth, connecting sacred sites that have an abundance of earth and spirit energy,” Gabby explained. “Places like churches, burial sites, and standing stones were all built over them in ancient times, long before witches were created. They were places of importance to the Celestines because of their direct conduit to their souls and that of the earth and universe. They travel across the earth in straight lines.”

  “And the Unhallowed have found a way to leech off that power?” Alex asked.

  She nodded. “There are many across the countryside, but this spell holds the key to which one they used.”

  “And where is it?” Nye asked, his mind mulling over this new information.

  “About twenty minutes outside of London to the east,” the witch replied, showing him the location on her phone. “A stone circle is there, dating back a few thousand years. The perfect place to launch their assault from if you ask me.”

  “We should check it out,” Alex said.

  “I don’t think that’s wise,” Nye declared. “Eleanor took down Tristan without even blinking.”

  “But I’m a founder.”

  “Still wouldn’t risk it.”

  “He’s right,” Gabby agreed. “I’m not even sure how to fight a bunch of wraiths. We can’t risk it without knowing more.”

  “What about the curse?” Alex asked, turning to the witch. “Have you worked out how to slow it?”

  “I don’t think I can,” Gabby replied, rubbing her eyes. “At least, not enough to b
uy us the time I need to find a cure…if there is one.”

  “So we just sit here and watch Isobel slip away?” Alex exclaimed. “There must be something we can do.”

  Nye glanced at the door and back again. There was something he could do to save her. The only thing any of them could do to get the Unhallowed to lift the curse in time. Nye had to admit defeat and turn himself over.

  It would destroy Isobel, but she would be alive and safe. Alex and Gabby would protect her, and the Unhallowed would disappear once they had his head on a pike. Why fight the inevitable?

  Thanks to Gabby, he knew exactly where to go to find Eleanor. All that was left to do was leave.

  “Fuck this,” he cursed, rising to his feet.

  “Don’t you even think of doing something stupid,” Gabby snapped at him.

  “No, Gabby. I’m going to check on Isobel and then twiddle my thumbs while you bang your head against the wall,” he retorted and strode from the room before anyone could even think of stopping him from seeing Isobel.

  His gaze met Tristan’s as he stepped out into the hall. There was a sight for sore eyes.

  “Where the hell have you been?” he asked.

  The knight shrugged, totally out of profound metaphors for the first time in his life.

  “You need a tighter leash, dog,” Nye snarled and shoved past him.

  Behind him, he heard the study door open as Tristan disappeared inside and then voices as they filled him in on the events he’d missed.

  Nye didn’t care what they did anymore. He supposed Tristan would step up as leader of the London vampires. There was no one else in their circle capable of handling the position. Either way, it was out of his control.

  Easing Isobel’s bedroom door open, he ghosted across to her bedside. She stirred as if she sensed his presence, and her eyes opened.

  “Hey,” she murmured, her lips curving into a smile.

  “Hey,” he replied, sitting beside her and smoothing her rumpled hair away from her face. “How are you feeling?”