The Keeping Place
Book Sox in The Witch Hunter Saga
Nicole R. Taylor
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Other Books in The Witch Hunter Saga
VIP Newsletter
About the Author
The Keeping Place (Book Six in The Witch Hunter Saga)
Copyright © 2013-17 by Nicole R. Taylor
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cover Design © Nicole R. Taylor
Chapter 1
Nye Saer stared into the empty fireplace and screwed up his nose.
He’d rarely felt tired in his four hundred and twenty something years as a vampire, but being the leader of the London vampires was beginning to grate. Big time. That and the events of the last few months.
Crazy ex-girlfriends with epic revenge plots would be the death of him…and he was already technically dead as a doornail and then some.
It hadn’t even been a week since he’d been torn from the clutches of the Unhallowed, the ragtag group of witches turned wraiths led by his ex-girlfriend Eleanor. They’d carved a symbol into his chest as part of their screwed-up ritual to tie him to the ley lines. Without his vampirism, they would have needed to refresh their conduit time and time again, but with his ability to heal himself, they’d had a constant connection to the earth and an unlimited stream of power…not to mention leaving him in agony twenty-four seven.
It was a totally screwed-up revenge plot if you asked him, but he’d sacrificed himself to save Isobel from a terrible curse.
Isobel. At the thought of the fiery haired human, his heart softened. He would have suffered millennia so she could have lived a handful of happy, healthy years.
The door opened behind him, and he turned to find the witch Gabby Cohen slinking into the study. The Hampstead mansion where they now resided was hers, gifted to her after the death of the last original founding vampire, the two-thousand-year-old Roman, Regulus, who was also the last leader of the London vampires. That was another long story.
Her olive complexion, dark chestnut hair, and brown eyes were a familiar sight by now. They’d fought many foes together over the last year and suffered many losses. They were firm allies, but sometimes, he wasn’t sure they were friends…not yet. The whole witches versus vampire thing got muddy now and then. Nye knew she would choose her own kind without hesitation if it ever came down to it.
“How’s your chest?” Gabby asked, eyeing him in that judgmental way she had. “Any residual effects?”
His thoughts shifted from Isobel to the rune Eleanor had carved into his chest, the rune that had taken longer than it should to heal after the connection to the ley line was severed, and he began to feel uneasy. Something felt different about him, he was sure of it, but he couldn’t quite work out what. The mark had faded completely given enough time, but in his imagination, it still lingered. He rubbed at the phantom itch and rolled his eyes.
“You need to get it together,” Gabby said.
“I need to get it together?” he exclaimed, turning to face her fully. “Have you seen Tristan lately? He’s this close to crying into his cereal.” He held up his forefinger and thumb, pinching them together. “Don’t tell me what I should do, Gabby.”
Ever since Tristan had the compulsion Eleanor had unknowingly cast on him, the thousand-year-old knight had been sulking. Honestly, it pissed Nye off. More than ever, he needed all hands on deck to face the threat of the Unhallowed. Doubt and depression would see them all dead.
“You’re not the only one with problems, Nye, and your inaction is beginning to worry me. Eleanor is still out there if you haven’t forgotten.”
“How could I,” he muttered, a vision of the wraith’s look of rage as he’d plunged her knife into his chest, severing her connection to the ley lines. He’d forgotten a lot of things in his long life, but the moment the steel had sliced into his flesh and the flow of power ceased…well, he would never forget that.
“I don’t know what you want me to do, Gabby,” he went on. “You said it yourself. Wraiths weren’t meant to exist anymore. They haven’t been seen for at least a thousand years. No one knows how to end them or even where they went after you blasted them with your power.”
She sank into one of the armchairs by the dark fireplace and sighed, giving away how strung out she really was. She was the most powerful witch currently walking the earth, and he knew it had taken more than he could fathom to overwhelm the wraiths the night of the ritual.
Considering the energy that was in her grasp, even she didn’t have enough in her to end them for good.
Gabby remained silent. Even she didn’t know the answers to her annoying questions, and she was a walking witchy almanac. That was it then. They were as good as doomed, and all they were currently doing was buying time.
“We are all weak,” Nye said, casting away his thoughts of their terminal status. “The last thing we need is for that news to get out. We must show a united front and let the vampires think the Unhallowed have been dealt with. A revolt now would be bad.”
“You don’t have to tell me,” was her reply. “I can’t even light a candle. Thank goodness the wards around the manor are still intact.”
“Then we buy time. Enjoy our last days of freedom.”
“You’re giving up?” she asked incredulously. “Nye—”
“What other recourse do we have?” he snapped, interrupting her. “I don’t know about you, but our end is coming. Not today, not tomorrow, or maybe in a hundred years, but it is coming.”
“How very Sylvia Plath of you,” Gabby retorted. “We all have an expiration date, Nye, even you. Nothing can live forever but damned if I’m going to let our end be at the hands of the Unhallowed. Don’t be so quick to give up. Isobel sure hasn’t.”
At the mention of Isobel’s name, he ground his teeth together. The feeling of helplessness he’d been suffering ever since he’d been dragged away from that stone circle was threatening to drown him completely. There was no way to fight them…
“So what now, Gabby?” he asked, turning to stare at her. “If there is hope, tell me now. What’s your plan?”
She stared at him, her eyes full of fierce rage. “First, we regain our strength. Then we find any information about their kind, no matter the cost of getting it. Once we are armed, we wait and watch. Finally, when she comes, we’ll be ready for her.”
He snorted. She’d obviously been thinking about it a great deal while he sulked alongside Tristan.
Gabby’s plan seemed simple, but with their lives in the balance, it was more difficult than anything. Where would they look? Who could they turn to? He had absolute
ly no idea, and neither did she.
Casting out his hearing, Nye heard the faint pitter-patter of Isobel’s heartbeat and the thumps as she stormed around the bathroom, attempting to fix his handiwork on the marble basin. She was a human being, fragile, yet her mind was stronger than any vampire he’d ever known. She was intelligent beyond compare, her resolve impenetrable. Isobel had no way of fighting the Unhallowed, yet she’d stood up to Eleanor, anyway.
Nye had thought he’d seen it all, but the day he’d opened his eyes and saw her…damn. Who would’ve thought a human with barely three decades on her could have so much to teach a vampire with four centuries under his belt? Not him, that was certain.
“Go,” Gabby said, watching him closely. “Be with her. She needs you, but I think you need her more.”
Rolling his eyes, Nye left the study in search of Isobel, cursing under his breath. Damn witches.
Isobel stared at the cracked marble basin in her bathroom and sighed.
Nye had broken it the other day. He’d been in a rage after she and her friends had rescued him from that crazy Unhallowed ritual at the standing stones outside of London. Knowing he had vampire superstrength, Isobel knew his anger had been restrained. If he could crack a solid piece of marble with his bare hands, she imagined what he could do when he didn’t hold himself back. She shook her head, feeling tired.
She was nothing but a frail human being in a sea of supernatural creatures far superior to her. Talk about in over her head.
Ever since her best friend, the witch Gabby, had sent the Unhallowed packing, Isobel had been tired. Worried the curse Eleanor had put on her had come back—after Nye had sacrificed himself to save her from it—she’d fretted, but she hadn’t fallen to the lethargy she’d experienced before. Putting it down to stress, she turned to her reflection and dragged a comb through her fiery hair. She was a little dark around her eyes.
Surely, it was stress from the lingering threat of Eleanor and her squad of freaky wraiths. Her newly acquired vampire boyfriend wasn’t helping with his perpetual moodiness either.
Oh, Nye, she thought to herself. Why did she always have to be attracted to the bad boys? The chase was thrilling, but the reality of a relationship was a much different basket of fruit.
Isobel stared at herself in the mirror for a moment longer and sighed. Being depressed over her fragility would do her no good. It was a fact, and that was that. She just had to suck it up and deal.
A shadow appeared in the mirror over her shoulder, and she yelped as the shape of a man hovered in the background. Realizing the apparition was her brother Alex, she spun on her heel.
“Alex!” she practically screeched, holding her hand over her pounding heart. “Don’t do that!”
“Sorry,” her brother said sheepishly. “I’m still getting used to the whole sound barrier thing. I keep breaking it and not realizing.”
Snorting, Isobel turned and flicked off the bathroom light, plunging the room into darkness. One day, she would come to terms with the fact her little brother was a truly immortal vampire. Nothing but their friend Aya, the vampire Celestine hybrid, could put an end to him. He was still within the first year of his transition and was constantly forgetting his own strength...and hunger.
“How are you feeling?” he asked, ushering her to sit on the couch out in the bedroom.
The fancy room Nye had installed Isobel in all that time ago had fast become home, despite her annoyance at being held hostage—it had been for her own protection, or so he said. It was a small apartment in itself with a king-sized bed donned in silk sheets, a leather couch and armchair set, an open fireplace, an enormous television, and a black marble bathroom complete with pearly bathtub with golden, clawed feet. The only thing missing was its own little kitchenette and butler.
Isobel flopped down on the couch and stretched out her legs as her brother took one of the armchairs. It didn’t escape her notice that his eye had wandered and taken in all of Nye’s discarded clothing on the floor. It wasn’t a secret he disapproved of the budding relationship she was sharing with the four-hundred-year-old spy. But he was genuinely trying to remain calm, so she’d give him points for that.
“I’m okay,” she replied. “I’m tired, but it’s nothing to do with the curse. I’m normal human tired.”
“Good,” Alex said. “Has Nye been treating you okay? Because if he hasn’t, you know I’m stronger than he is. I can snap him in half.” He held up his hands. “Just say the word.”
She laughed and nudged him with her foot. “Don’t scare him off just yet, okay?”
He smiled, but it seemed to fade faster than it had appeared. “I’m worried, Iz.”
Thinking about the lingering threat of the Unhallowed wraiths, she shrugged. “Yeah, well, there’s not much we can do about that.”
“I can’t help but feel we’re on borrowed time,” he said, his brow furrowing. “Are you really sure you want to stay? We can go someplace far away, and I can protect you. Staying here…”
Isobel shook her head, squashing down the irritation Alex’s words had invoked. “No,” was her declaration. “I can’t leave him, Alex. I’m sure there’s something I can do to help. No one knows anything about wraiths or the history behind the Unhallowed. I’ve worked my whole life to understand the ancient people and cultures of the world. Not to mention all their myths. I have access to one of the greatest libraries and depositories of ancient texts in the world at Oxford University. I have contacts. Albeit, they may not be supernatural, but we found Katrin’s grimoire in the vault there, didn’t we? Who knows what else is in there. If there’s a chance I can uncover something, no matter how small, then I’m going to stay.”
“For him?” was Alex’s reply.
“For Nye, yes, but not just him. For everyone.” She shuffled along the couch so she could reach out for her brother’s hand, which she took in her own. His skin was so cold to the touch these days. “Alex, you have to trust me. And if you can’t trust me, trust Gabby. We’ll find a way to fight the Unhallowed. I’m sure of it.”
Alex stared at her for a moment, and she hoped some of her conviction would rub off on him. He might be immortal, but she would always be older, that was, until the day she died, and he went on. Older meant wiser, right?
“I’m not going anywhere anytime soon,” he said after a moment.
“Thanks, little brother. I don’t know if I could do any of this without you.”
“Am I interrupting?”
Isobel glanced up at the sound of Nye’s voice and smiled. Standing at barely five foot eight with a twisted scar running diagonally across his face and his unkempt hair, the vampire looked more like a back alley thief than a powerful leader.
“Nye,” she said, her heart fluttering. “Not at all.”
His lips quirked, and she knew he’d heard the skip in her steady pulse, which meant Alex had, too.
“I think that’s my signal,” her brother said wryly, getting up out of the armchair.
Wanting some alone time with Nye, she allowed Alex to leave, but she wouldn’t have been able to say so otherwise. He’d just evaporated, darting from the room faster than her gaze could follow.
Nye hadn’t even acknowledged the founder, his sights still firmly fixed on Isobel. Stepping forward, he sat beside her and opened his arms, scooping her close. Touching seemed to be coming easier to the vampire. His small endearments—a stroke of the cheek, an embrace, a chaste kiss—were becoming more frequent. She couldn’t blame him for taking things slowly. There was that time when he lost control and got all randy and bit her in a fit of passion.
“Are you well?” he asked, breathing deeply.
“I’m okay,” she replied, melting into his touch.
He looked at her pointedly, his gaze searching her features.
“Nye.”
“Fine,” he said. “What do you want to do tonight?”
“Tonight?” was her confused reply. “Don’t you have any diabolical vampire shenanigans t
o attend to?”
He smirked. “Diabolical vampire shenanigans?”
“Oh, you know what I mean.”
“No,” he said. “I’m all yours tonight. I know we haven’t spent much time together since…” he trailed off, a frown creasing his pale forehead.
She wasn’t a fool. She knew the rune Eleanor had carved into his chest still bothered him. Honestly, it still worried her, too.
“Whatever you like,” she said.
“How about I answer some of your questions. For your thesis.”
She pulled back and stared up at him in surprise. “Really? I thought you didn’t—”
“Take the offer while it’s good, Isobel,” he interrupted.
Thrilled that Nye actually wanted to talk about the parts of his human life he remembered, she placed a soft kiss on his lips. “Let me just get my notes.”
Maybe it was foolish, or maybe it was a mere distraction, but she still hoped she could pick up the tattered remains of her life and go back to the Master’s program at Oxford University. The life she’d been plucked from the day she decided to check up on Alex and had been imprisoned by Nye instead. Finishing her thesis was important to her even though it might not amount to anything considering their vermin problem.
Snatching up her notebooks and laptop, she flung herself down on the bed and patted the space beside her, which Nye took.
“Get comfortable,” she said with a wicked smile. “I’ve got a lot of questions.”
Chapter 2
Gabby lingered in the study long after Nye left to be with Isobel.
Her thoughts drifted to the task at hand, and her anxiety began to rise at the unknown path they must take to face the Unhallowed. Nye had declared his lack of faith, but she was far from ready to resign herself to being syphoned until she was nothing but a withered husk.
Piecing together what she knew, she tried to make sense of the mystery.
The night of the ritual at the standing stones, she’d stepped into the ether and allowed her spirit to soak in the waning power of the ley lines, desperate for any clue to help her against the wraiths. The ancestor spirits had guided her, showing her a vision of the moment Nye had ended Eleanor’s human life back in the early sixteen hundreds. The wraith had attacked the spy and attempted to carve a symbol in his forehead, marking him for something unknown. Had it been the same symbol she’d used the night of the ritual? She’d been shoved into Eleanor’s body to witness the scene but wasn’t privy to her intent. It could have been anything.