“No more talking,” I said.
Ash’s eyelids grew heavy, and a smile tugged at his lips. With a growl that would make a werewolf proud, I dug my fingers into his hair and pulled him closer.
Chapter 53
“Hunters make enemies. It is the nature of our job.”
-Jenna Lehane, Hunter
I awoke the next morning with my head on Ash’s chest. His chest didn’t rise and fall since he no longer breathed, unless it was out of habit. He also didn’t sleep.
“Good morning, love,” he said.
“You stayed,” I said, lifting my head to search his face for clues.
I’m not sure what I’d expected, but after last night, I’d started to wonder if this was all a dream. But Ash was here, solid beneath me, more solid than any ghost should be.
“You don’t have to sound so surprised,” he said.
He leaned down and brushed his lips across mine in the hint of a kiss. I shivered in anticipation, but soon my teeth were chattering which made kissing difficult. I sat up, pulling the blankets over my shoulders, and rubbed my arms.
After I’d fallen asleep on the archive couch, Ash had wrapped me in three blankets, but I was still freezing.
“It’s d-d-drafty in here,” I said, wracked with another shiver from head to toe. “How can Darryl work down here?”
Ash curled his hands in his lap and swore. I raised an eyebrow at him, but he winced and shook his head.
“Sorry, love,” he said. “I don’t think the building’s the problem.”
“Then wha…?” I started to ask. “Oh.”
Ash was a ghost. Ghosts create cold spots and icy drafts. I’d always thought it was something they did intentionally to haunt a particular person or place. Apparently, that assumption, like so many I’d made about the dead, was wrong.
I reached for Ash, but my movements were still slow from sleep, and he managed to stand and turn away.
“I’ll see if I can rouse Darryl or Celeste and fetch a pot of tea,” he said. “You have a busy day ahead.”
I intended to go after Ash to clear the sudden awkwardness between us, but his last statement rooted me to the spot. Waking up in Ash’s arms, I’d nearly forgotten what today was. The last vestiges of sleep fled my body, and I stared at my hands as my vision blurred.
Today was Martens’ funeral.
We’d pulled some strings to have the ceremony so soon, but I’d worried that the Guild might ship me away to a Siberian desk job, and this was something I needed to be here for. As it was, we’d be leaving tomorrow for Paris.
Ash was right—we had a busy day ahead.
A medical examiner from the Hunters’ Guild in Brussels came to assist with the hasty burial preparations. As per Guild rules, Martens was staked and decapitated—like the vampires he’d joined forces with. I left the M.E. to his job.
I spent the morning explaining our upcoming mission to my team and making preparations. We were traveling light, but Master Peeters had sent a fax giving permission for us to take what we needed from the Guild’s arsenal. Zarkhov was grinning from ear to ear like a kid in a candy store, so I gave Darryl the task of keeping inventory. He’d also keep the Russian in check.
We were only crossing one border, and that was within the EU, but I still didn’t want unnecessary complications. We’d travel with weapons, but we’d need to be smart about what we carried with us and how we transported it. That also applied to Celeste’s magic components. Even if she didn’t try to smuggle Mandragora in her luggage, which was probably too much to hope for, many of the herbs she used for casting spells were controlled substances. Packing kept me busy right up until the funeral.
*****
I stood in my newly repaired hunting gear. My skirt and bodysuit were functional, not fancy, but it was a respectable black. My gear also ensured ease of movement, and the skirt gave me a place to stash my weapons in case we had any unwanted guests.
Hunters make enemies. It is the nature of our job. But if any monsters planned on crashing this party, they’d have to go through me. So far, it was a modest crowd, and all of the guests—except for Ash—were human.
Martens’ funeral was small. He had no surviving family besides his daughter. For most of Martens’ life, like so many of us, the Guild had been his only family. Benjamin Martens had been part of our family, and he’d betrayed us, and then I’d killed him.
I kept to myself during the graveside ceremony, glad that Ash was keeping his distance. This was something I had to do on my own. After what seemed like days, the priest was done and mourners started to disperse.
My eyes followed Clara as the teacher who’d accompanied her from her boarding school led her toward a car that sat idling on the street nearby. A social worker—I could identify one anywhere, no matter what country we were in—waited with a pinched expression, holding the car door open and briskly waving the girl to get inside.
I moved quickly, dodging headstones as I closed the space between me and Clara. I hadn’t intended on saying anything to the girl, but now that the ceremony was over there were still words that needed to be said. Apparently, I was the only one who would say them.
“Excuse me,” I said, pasting a smile on my face and nodding to the social worker. “May I have a moment with Clara before she leaves? I was a friend of her father’s.”
The woman let out a sigh and checked her watch with an exaggerated movement of her wrist, but when I didn’t disappear, she nodded.
“I suppose we can spare a moment, Miss…” she said.
“Lehane,” I said. “Jenna Lehane.”
I turned to Clara and took a deep breath, blinking away unshed tears. She was small and pale, her eyes red-rimmed from crying, but she lifted her chin with hands fisted at her sides. Except for the dark, unruly hair, she reminded me of myself at her age.
“D-d-daddy never mentioned a Jenna,” she said.
Her lip quivered, but she didn’t cry when she mentioned her dad. Clara was one tough little cookie. I smiled, this time with genuine warmth and nodded.
“We haven’t worked together long, but it was long enough to know something important about your dad,” I said.
The official Guild cover for Martens was that he was an EMT. His death was ruled a vehicular homicide, an accident while transporting time sensitive organs to a donor hospital. It explained the closed casket funeral, but it wasn’t much of a story for a young child.
“He was a good man,” I said. I reached out and placed a hand on Clara’s tiny shoulder. “Your father died a hero.”
I turned and walked away. I’d said what needed to be said. The car’s engine faded away, followed soon after by the handful of mourners from the Guild. I wandered through the rows of graves, waiting for everyone to leave. I could catch a cab back into the city, but for now, I wanted to be alone.
I found my way back to where Martens was buried under a simple headstone in the back of the city cemetery. The Guild refused to bury him next to our loyal brothers, but I made sure his daughter would have somewhere to visit him when she was old enough.
I hoped that this place would someday give her some comfort, but I knew all too well the folly in that logic. Life wasn’t that easy. Clara would face a lot of challenges in the future, more than most.
I lingered at the fresh grave, intently watching every shadow as a breeze stirred the leaves on the trees, but Martens’ ghost never made contact. I squeezed my eyes shut and pinched the bridge of my nose. I don’t know what I was hoping for. Martens had died at my hand. His shade probably wouldn’t have been interested in forgiveness.
I let my hands fall to my side and walked away, ignoring the other ghosts who gathered here. I made my way between the moss covered headstones and elaborate tombs, the eyes of marble angels seeming to follow every step.
I turned back once and nodded, acknowledging their weighty gaze.
“If you really are watching Lord, we could use your help in this fight,” I said.
&n
bsp; My words were answered only by the squawk of birds and the buzz of insects, but I heard the message loud and clear. I may be on an honorable mission with the noble intent to stop the monsters and save the innocent, but there would be no divine help in this fight.
I was on my own.
Chapter 54
“When it comes to fighting the fae, cold iron does the trick every time.”
-Jenna Lehane, Hunter
Martens’ body was in the ground and my team was packed and armed for bear. That left one more loose end to tie up before catching our train tomorrow morning.
I smiled, baring my teeth as I entered the fog shrouded park. I was dressed in a school uniform, and my short, red hair was pulled into two ridiculous pig tails. Celeste had been more than happy to let me borrow the costume, probably thinking I intended a bit of naughty schoolgirl role playing with Ash.
I frowned, the memory of this morning ruining the thrill of the hunt. Ever since waking up in Ash’s arms with my teeth chattering out of my skull, things had been awkward between us. I tried to explain that I didn’t blame him for wracking my body with the shakes, or turning my lips blue, but it was a busy day and he’d made himself scarce.
It gave a whole new meaning to giving someone the cold shoulder.
I turned my attention to the approaching canal, pushing away thoughts of Ash. I skipped to the water’s edge, nodding to the ghost boy sitting on the nearby bench.
“This is for you, kiddo,” I whispered.
The ghost didn’t look up, but I hadn’t expected him to. Something splashed in the murky water of the canal, and I palmed my silver and iron KABAR knife. Unlike my battle skirt, the short plaid skirt I was wearing wasn’t good at hiding weapons. But that was okay. I didn’t need my wooden stakes tonight.
When it comes to fighting the fae, cold iron does the trick every time.
“Come, child,” the grindylow crooned. “Come and play. The water is warm tonight, perfect for swimming.”
I dug the fingernails of my free hand into the crusted scab on my palm, careful not to succumb to the faerie’s voice. The grindylow’s voice may not be as musical as the rusalka’s, but there was magic in it just the same. It wouldn’t do to become ensnared by this creature’s enchantment, not if I valued my internal organs.
“Ooh, I love to swim!” I squealed in my best girly voice.
“Then come closer,” he said, waving a spindly arm.
His froglike head crested the water and I caught a glimpse of his needle-like teeth as he flashed a predatory grin. I stumbled to the water’s edge, moving stiffly.
“Yes, I should…come closer,” I said.
Faking a trance-like state was part of the job, but it was all I could do not to laugh. I’d promised the grindylow that if he touched one child while I was here in his city, I’d take him apart piece by piece. But seeing the ghost of the little boy on the bench had given me an even better idea.
“Come, youngling,” he said. “Almost there…”
The grindylow lashed out, grabbing at my legs and preparing to drag me into the canal. Too bad I had other plans.
I spun, landing a kick to his throat and stifling his cries as soon as they’d begun. His hands flew to his neck, a predictable move given the circumstances. My blade was waiting, cutting his webbed hands off at the wrist. Grindylow arms are skinny, which made my job easy.
He wailed, a gurgling scream trying to push its way through his broken windpipe, and I shook my head.
“I warned you, Grindy,” I said. “No eating children, not on my watch.”
I grabbed him by the throat and lifted his bloated body out of the water. He tried to angle his head to chomp at me with his impressive teeth, but I’d neutralized that threat by grabbing his neck. He couldn’t bite me, and his attempts to push me away with bloody stumps only made me shake him harder. Celeste was going to be pissed.
Blood stains are a bitch to get out.
“You should know by now not to judge a book by its cover,” I said, gesturing at my schoolgirl costume.
With one last look at the ghost of the little boy on the bench, the one this faerie had disemboweled, I stabbed my knife into the grindylow’s abdomen and dragged the blade in a long, jagged line.
The creature’s bulbous eyes clouded over as bluish gray, ropey entrails fell from his abdominal cavity and onto the grassy embankment.
“It’s what’s on the inside that matters,” I quipped.
I dropped the dead grindylow and kicked his body and his intestines into the murky waters of the canal. I rinsed off my hands and my blade, before turning back to face the park. I nodded, knowing that my job here was finally done.
“Safe travels, kiddo,” I said as I made my way through the fog shrouded trees.
For the first time since arriving in Bruges, the park bench was empty.
Chapter 55
“Hugues repeated incessantly, ‘Morte… morte… Bruges-la-Morte,’ with a mechanical look, in a slack voice, trying to match ‘Morte… morte… Bruges-la-Morte’ to the cadence of the last bells: slow, small, exhausted old women who seemed languishingly—is it over the city, is it over a tomb?—to be shedding petals of flowers of iron!”
-Georges Rodenbach, Bruges-la-Morte
I’d entered the city of Bruges to the fanfare of bells, so it seemed only fitting that the bell tower chimed at my departure. But it’s strange how one week can change one’s perceptions. The bells that rang out over this medieval city once seemed quaint, but now they sounded ominous to my ears.
“Dead, dead, city of the dead,” the city seemed to cry, the words whispering through dark alleys and along the canals. Everywhere I looked, ghosts flickered in and out of focus.
I’d helped hundreds of the restless dead find peace, but staking Guy Dampierre couldn’t heal centuries of terror. The history of Bruges was so steeped in violent death it was surprising that the entire city didn’t run red with blood.
The Count of Flanders was responsible for many of these deaths, but not every man and woman died by his hand, or his fangs. I shook my head, trying to dispel the image of blood running down the streets, red rivulets winding between the cobbles, into the canals, and eventually finding its way to the sea.
I thought of Benjamin “Doc” Martens. His broken body may be entombed in the city cemetery, but it was hard to imagine that his spirit could find rest. Not so long as his daughter lived.
I’d come to Bruges to protect the innocent, but I was leaving the city with one more orphan.
I swallowed hard and vowed to make sure that Clara found a good home. It would mean calling in favors, but I knew that the Guild could pull the kind of strings necessary to make that happen. That was the least I could do.
“You okay, love?” Ash asked, as if reading my thoughts.
“I’m fine,” I said.
If I thought too hard about those we left behind, I’d never be able to move forward. So I ignored the heaviness of my limbs, fighting the paralysis that threatened with every weighty breath.
I kept my eyes on the street ahead, never once looking back. The bells continued to ring, matching the measured cadence of my stride as my boots hit the cobbles. Each tone of the bells zinged along my nerves and set my teeth on edge—like a mortician hammering the nails of a coffin.
Bruges had been a nightmare, but every fiber of my being knew that the horrors of the past few days were just the beginning. War was brewing. Holy relics and magical items were going missing around the globe, falling into the hands of monsters.
I was in a race against time and there was no way to know which side would win. I managed to keep one relic from the monsters, but even with the Holy Blood in our possession there was no guarantee that humans would survive this fight. There was only one thing that was certain.
I would protect the innocent, or die trying.
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Coming Soon
Hunting in Paris
By E.J. Stevens
Paris, the city of light. The city of love. Too bad it was crawling with vampires.
Birthright
By E.J. Stevens
Being a faerie princess isn't what it's cracked up to be...
Also by E.J. Stevens
Spirit Guide
Young Adult Series
She Smells the Dead
Spirit Storm
Legend of Witchtrot Road
Brush with Death
The Pirate Curse
Ivy Granger
Urban Fantasy Series
Shadow Sight
Blood and Mistletoe
Ghost Light
Club Nexus
Burning Bright
Hunters’ Guild
Urban Fantasy Series
Hunting in Bruges
Dark Poetry Collections
From the Shadows
Shadows of Myth and Legend
Burning Bright
Ever play whack-a-mole with a jincan? No? Well, then aren’t you the fortunate one. Not only do jincan look like overgrown caterpillars with pointy teeth, but they also breed like bunnies and have a knack for undermining integral weight-bearing structures, leaving piles of rubble in their wake. Oh, and they smell like rotten eggs when squished—just my luck.
I scanned the cratered parking lot and sighed. Ever since Jenna was shipped off to Europe on some top-secret Hunters’ Guild mission, Harborsmouth’s supernatural pest problem had grown out of control. Jenna was one of the youngest members in the Harborsmouth Guild office and, as such, was responsible for the less desirable hunting jobs—like taking care of a nest of jincan. Now that she was gone, that job fell to the private sector.