The Keeping Place (Book Six in the Witch Hunter Saga)

  Ismena stared up at Gabby, her hazel eyes sparkling. Glancing at the olive tree, she scrunched up her nose and sniffed. Then she grasped Gabby’s hand.

  “Love,” she said, pointing to the tree.

  Then as suddenly as she’d appeared, the little witch ran off across the yard, skipping into the house like nothing had happened.

  “She’s a curious little thing.”

  Gabby jumped, clutching her heart at the sound of Reed’s voice. “What’s with all the sneaking around this place?”

  “No sneaking,” the vampire said, standing beside her. “I saw you out here and wanted to check if you needed anything today.”

  “Aren’t you meant to be out searching for Eleanor with the Six?”

  “Yes,” he nodded, suddenly looking a lot like Tristan. “I’m on my way inside to give Nye my report.”

  “Which is?”

  “The same as yesterday,” he replied with a frown. “I wish I had better news.”

  “Don’t we all,” she declared with a sigh.

  Reed shifted closer. “Are you well?”

  “As I can be.” Was she well? What kind of question was that? Of course, she wasn’t, but there was no medicine she could take for what ailed her. “And you?”

  He smiled and shook his head. She knew he hadn’t confessed his parentage to Tristan—his long-lost father—since the night they fought side by side to fend off Eleanor. They’d all been on edge, but time was running out. Dumb luck would only get them so far, and she knew they couldn’t rely on it, not anymore. They needed a foolproof plan, or they were all going to die, and Ismena would be used to resurrect an evil coven of wraiths. They were the last line of defense.

  “You need to speak to him, Reed,” she said. “Eleanor is coming back for Ismena, and we might not be as lucky as last time. If you’re going to say something, I would do it now.”

  “Perhaps,” he said, a note of sadness in his voice.

  She stared at him for a long moment, watching his changing expression, then said, “You had better deliver the bad news to Nye. Tristan is in the living room watching Ismena. Perhaps you can speak to him, at least, even if you don’t confide your secret.”

  The vampire nodded once. “And you? Do you require assistance?”

  “No, I’m fine.” She gestured to the tree, which would act as her doorway to the other side in lieu of a living garden around her. “I need to do this part alone.”

  Reed smiled and left, disappearing into the house to face Nye’s displeasure. She hoped he would talk to his father and tell him the truth. God knew Tristan needed something to live for.

  Reed stood in the foyer of the Hampstead mansion, smarting from bearing the brunt of Nye Saer’s displeasure.

  A vampire being able to hunt a wraith was just as absurd as a baby who grew a year in a week. One of those things had happened, so there must be a miracle waiting when it came to the other. Anything was better than returning tomorrow with the same news he’d been delivering for the past month.

  Hesitating at the entrance to the living room, he saw Tristan clearing up the mess of toys the child witch had left in her wake. It was such a strange sight to see a thousand-year-old vampire, his father, tidy up the mess of a four-year-old girl.

  “Where is the little one?” he asked, drawing the knight’s attention. “Gabby said you were watching her.”

  “Gone for lunch with Isobel,” Tristan replied, placing the last of the building blocks back into their bright yellow container.

  As he watched the knight, Reed wondered if he’d done the same for his sister Annabelle when she was that small. Perhaps he hadn’t since his mother had told him he’d been away with the Knights Templar a great deal. His fortune and station in the order had kept them from begging on the street, so they’d borne the absence, but for Reed… Well, he wouldn’t know since Tristan had supposedly died in a faraway land and had never known he had a son at all.

  Taking the small leather-bound copy of the Bible from his pocket, Reed turned it over in his hand, ashamed he’d stolen it from Tristan’s room the night he and Gabby discovered the knight had left. He’d just wanted something that had been his father’s, but now he saw it had been the wrong thing to do. Desperation had guided his hand.

  “Is that…” Tristan rose to his feet, having seen the book.

  Now was as good a time as any, he supposed. What would be the worst thing that happened? Tristan refusing to believe him, forcing him to go back on the road alone. He was tired of wondering if there was anything else out there for him other than being alone.

  “You can’t tell me you don’t see her in me,” he said, handing Tristan the Bible.

  Tristan stared at him, his brow furrowed.

  “Juliette,” he said.

  The knight’s brow furrowed, his eyes carrying a warning.

  “Reed isn’t my real name,” he said, going for it. “It was just an identity I took after I turned.”

  “What is your name?” the knight asked carefully, his voice full of trepidation.

  “Aedan,” he muttered, casting his gaze away. “Aedan na Tri Tor.”

  “Explain yourself,” Tristan hissed. “What kind of trick are you playin’ at?”

  “I am long past the time for tricks,” he spat. “I’ve searched for you for nearly eight hundred years. I thought you long gone, but here you are. You are my father, and I am the son you never knew you had, put in my mother’s belly before you marched to your death. Had you come home…” he trailed off, his jaw tensing.

  “I didn’t come home,” the knight declared. “I couldn’t.”

  “I understand,” Reed began. “I thought you’d died, just like everyone else. It wasn’t until later I found out the truth.”

  “My son,” the knight began, shaking his head in disbelief. “I had a son.”

  “Have,” Reed said firmly, beginning to regret he’d said anything at all.

  They stared at one another in silence, and he didn’t dare move in case Tristan changed his mind and decided he didn’t want to believe.

  “How did it happen?” he finally asked. “How did you turn?”

  “I was twenty-seven,” Reed began. “I was a soldier just like you’d been. I never became a knight, not by a long shot, but I guess you can understand why that was.”

  Tristan nodded.

  Reed grimaced. “Declared the hero of Constantinople and branded traitor all on the same day. It had a lasting legacy.”

  “If you’d seen the disgusting’ things they were doin’ to the civilians of that city and others just like it… Rapin’ and pillagin’ in the name of God. I could not stand for it a moment longer. I was the one who got inside and opened the gate to let the army in. I stood up to them and was sent to my death in the sewers underneath the city. If you’re truly a son of mine, you would have done the same thing.”

  “We were sent to Normandy to squash a rebellion against the Crown. The French were in support of the usurpers…”

  “You died in battle?”

  “For years I’d dealt with the torment of being a traitor’s son even though I never knew you. It wasn’t the enemy who slew me but men who were supposed to be brothers in arms. During the battle against the rebels, they set upon me. An easy way to deliver death without blame coming back on them.” Reed shrugged. “I don’t know how vampire blood came to be in my system and no one else’s, but I was alone.”

  “Vampires were known to lurk around battlefields,” Tristan said gently. “Perhaps you were fed upon, healed, and then compelled to forget.”

  “Perhaps. I woke hours later in a field of corpses with a ravenous hunger.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “I dragged myself back to camp. It was night, the darkness absolute. The men who slew me were horrified to see me standing there. I remembered their swords as they gutted me. I remembered their callous laughter. I remembered it all. I killed them where they stood with my bare hands. I ripped into their throats with my teet
h…and so it was done.” He waited for Tristan to say something, but he remained silent, likely testing him to see if his story rang true within his own conscious. “A long time passed, I toiled and struggled with what I’d become, and then I heard about you. I searched ever since, but it wasn’t until…”

  “Until?”

  “I came to London and heard you were working with Regulus.”

  Tristan stared at him, unblinking. Goddammit, say something!

  “So you see, you do have something to live for.”

  Tristan stared at him, his expression clear, and Reed began to fidget, not knowing what his father thought of him. Finding out he had a son after a thousand years of wandering, thinking he was alone in the world? He supposed it was a great deal to take in.

  “After Eleanor compelled me, it changed somethin’ inside me,” the knight began. “I’ve struggled with my path in this world from the day I was born. As a human, and then as a vampire. I began this life killin’ and slaughterin’ innocents, and I’ve worked to atone for it ever since. I will be for the rest of my days. I’ve never belonged anywhere, not really.”

  “Not even with Mother and Annabelle?”

  Tristan smiled, his eyes misting. “It’s been a long time since I heard her name. Annabelle. Juliette.” Then he shook his head, thinking about Reed’s question. “I regret that I never had much time with them. It was the way of things back then, as you know. Long years away on campaigns saw me apart from them more than I would have liked, but I had to provide a wage. Otherwise, they would have been forced out of our home.”

  “And Grandfather had cast us off long before I was born,” Reed added.

  “Aye, that he did. Do you know what became of them?”

  Reed nodded. “They believed me dead, and I allowed them to mourn me, knowing they’d never accept what I’d become of their own free will. I checked in on them over the years. Mother lived a long life, and Annabelle married a merchant from the midlands. They moved away from the city and went on as well as they could.”

  “Juliette…”

  “Never remarried.”

  Tristan sighed, his thoughts still remaining his own.

  “And now?” Reed asked. “Do we continue as we were, or…”

  He’d finally found the courage to reveal his identity to his father, but after all this time, did he actually want him? He’d been forced to become the very thing Tristan hated about himself—a bloodthirsty vampire—so would he want a relationship with him, knowing he would be looking in the mirror and seeing everything he abhorred every single day?

  “Yes,” the knight said after a moment. “We continue. If I have learned anythin’ in this life, it is that the future remains ours. We can only come to terms with what we have done and do our best to right them. You are a part of this now Reed, how could I not want to know my own blood?” Picking up Ismena’s pink pony, he smiled. “What a strange family we have become.”

  Reed stared at the plastic toy and shook his head in bewilderment. He’d wanted to find his father since the day he learned he was still alive, but never in his wildest dreams did he imagine he would be inheriting not only Tristan but the group of mismatched supernaturals who lived in the manor, too.

  What a family, indeed.

  Chapter 18

  Gabby opened her eyes, her body stiff from the hours she’d been sitting on the hard earth, meditating.

  The sun had already begun setting, twilight well and truly blanketing the city. Her joints were stiff, but her mind was clear.

  Staring up at the olive tree, she knew exactly what she was meant to do. Sifting through the dreams and memories of a thousand witches and creatures who had departed to the other side had taken its toll, but an answer had presented itself. An answer she’d known all along but hadn’t wanted to acknowledge.

  All this time, she was avoiding the truth because she wanted to save something of herself, her dreams of a future too alluring for her to even consider another option. The ultimate sacrifice.

  She’d have to turn to darkness herself to defeat the Unhallowed. Give up her goodness to the coil of poison in her soul, siphon the ley lines and use the strength of the earth to shatter the wraiths on both sides of the veil once and for all. It was a betrayal of her own kind, and the ancestor spirits would likely shun her for all eternity, but she would do it regardless.

  Would she survive the ordeal? Was there a way back from so much pain and suffering? She’d almost been overwhelmed by it once, all that time ago when the Roman founder Arturius had taken her and attempted to turn her into his evil puppet. Aya had been able to bring her back from the brink, but this time…she’d have to dive right off the edge.

  Gabby knew there wasn’t a way back from the abyss even as her mind mulled over a way around it. It was a suicide mission, plain and simple. The others couldn’t know her plan, or they would try to stop her. This was the only way.

  Thinking of Ismena, she knew she would do it to spare the little girl the suffering. She was an innocent and didn’t deserve the fate brought upon her by Eleanor’s meddling with nature.

  Standing, she cast one more look at the olive tree before walking away. Would she see Regulus on the other side? Perhaps she might. It was a comforting thought, knowing her final hours were upon her.

  She stepped into the kitchen, and Alex raised his head from the newspaper he was reading at the island.

  “Gabby?” he asked, catching her arm. “Are you okay? You were out there for ages.”

  “I have a plan,” she said, waving him off. “Get Nye and Tristan, and meet me in the study.”

  His eyebrows rose. “A plan to kill Eleanor?”

  “Bring the others,” she said firmly, making a beeline for the study.

  Clattering up the stairs, she shoved into the study and went straight to the bookshelves, ignoring Nye who was sitting behind the desk, his cell phone to his ear. At her abrupt entrance, he ended the call and watched her closely.

  He raised his eyebrows as she rummaged through the shelves, looking for that grimoire she’d found with the dark spells inside. From the condition it was in, Regulus must have taken it from a dark witch sometime during the Middle Ages. All torn and stained with ancient blood, the pages thick and made from pulped reeds. It emanated a particular stench, but there were many similar artifacts in here that shared the same aura.

  “What’s up your ass?” the spy asked.

  “I’ve got a plan,” she muttered, finally locating the grimoire and flipping through the pages.

  “You’re shitting me,” he exclaimed, rising to his feet. “All that sitting around in the garden finally paid off?”

  “Meditation,” she snapped, finding the page she was looking for—the process she hoped to follow to allow her to siphon the ley lines. “I was sifting through memories of the spirits.”

  “Sounds like a trip.”

  “Don’t be a smartass,” Alex said, stepping into the study, followed closely by Tristan.

  “Forgive me if I’m skeptical,” the spy drawled. “After months of ‘stuffed if I know’ reports from all you sods, I’m not about to get my hopes up only to have to rip apart someone’s coronary artery to vocalize my displeasure.”

  “Way harsh,” the founder spat.

  “What’s going on?” Isobel asked, barging in after the vampires. “Alex said you have a plan?”

  Gabby nodded, thankful for the interruption. Bickering vampires wasn’t going to help with this. “I do, but no one is going to like it.”

  “Spill already,” Nye said, rolling his eyes. “I’m about done with all the uncertainty and waiting. I need to do something.”

  “We need to take the fight to Eleanor,” she said.

  “Where?” Alex asked.

  She raised an eyebrow. “Where else?”

  “The standing stones?” Nye asked. “But that’s where she’s most powerful.”

  She nodded. “But it will be where I’m most powerful, too.”

  “What do
you mean? Last time, you didn’t have enough power…”

  “I almost did,” she countered. “I managed to overwhelm four out of the five. Whatever essence they had left, they gave to Eleanor, making her stronger and more powerful than she was the first time around. I felt it the night Ismena was born. I faltered then, as well. I have a way to stand strong and get the power I need to withstand Eleanor’s assault.”

  Isobel faltered, her gaze flickering to Nye. “She means to siphon the ley lines. That’s what you mean, right?”

  “But that’s dark magic,” the spy exclaimed. “Everything you stand against. Using dark magic is what created the Unhallowed in the first place. You can’t be serious.”

  Gabby remained steadfast in her plan. “Sometimes, we have to do bad things in order to save what’s good in the world.”

  “What do you need?” Nye asked, causing Isobel to balk.

  “You’re just going to let her turn to dark magic?”

  “There’s no other way. If there was, we’d have found it a long time ago,” he replied.

  “He’s right,” Gabby said gravely. “Not even the ancestor spirits knew. Ismena—the founding witch—didn’t know, either.”

  Isobel shook her head in disbelief. “No!”

  “What do you need?” Nye asked, ignoring Isobel. “Whatever it is, consider it done.”

  “Time,” Gabby replied. “We’ll need to go to the standing stones where Eleanor performed the ritual on you. The ley lines will be open to me there, making it easier to siphon. Considering I haven’t done this before, I’ll need some help. Someone to watch over me.”

  “There are three vampires here who are strong enough to face a wraith,” Tristan said, breaking his silence.

  “You would face Eleanor?” she asked. “After what she did to you?”

  “She has no power over me,” he replied, inclining his head. “Only my own mind keeps me from fighting.”

  “He’s a regular Obi-Wan fucking Kenobi,” Nye said with a roll of his eyes.