"I don't know what will happen next," Aya said quietly. "But, it won't be good. I'll do whatever I can, but I cannot make any promises to you, Joseph."
Without another word, she strode across the gallery and back out into the museum proper and it's stream of tourists.
Aya believed Victoria didn't understand what would happen when she made the brothers. No member of the Coven had been turned and lived to tell about it, let alone turn another human being. From what Zac'd told her, Sam hadn't completed the change before he tore off Victoria's head. If anyone figured out that she turned Zac's brother as well, then Sam wouldn't be safe. Liz, Alex and Gabby would be collateral damage. Their existence had to be kept safe.
Unless Coraline was no longer useful to them, Zac was next in line. Aya couldn't let that happen.
Outside, the day had begun to darken and the air was crisp with frost. Winter saw the sun begin to set at the ungodly hour of three-thirty pm and it made the grey stone city seem all the more dreary. Pausing around the corner by a shop front, an off-licence full of beer, cigarettes and over priced conveniences, she rested her throbbing head against the cool facade. A monumental task had been set before her and she didn't know where to start.
She felt Tristan stand beside her and was suddenly glad he found it necessary to follow her like a shadow. His presence was reassuring when nothing seemed to be going her way. Turning around and leaning against the wall, she listened to the street around them as much to clear her mind as to wonder. If Regulus was so desperate to get into the sanctuary, would the Four be hovering around the edges of it? Listening with everything she had, she heard it. Or at least she hoped she did. Last time it hadn't been there at all.
"Tristan, we have to get Zac back," she suddenly declared.
"Why? Because of his blood?" It was like the knight had been reading her mind.
"That's not all and you know it," she glared at him.
"You can't hear him anymore. How do you expect to even find him?"
She leant against the wall of the off license, watching the entrance to the museum. Witches weren't the only supernaturals she'd seen hanging around Bloomsbury. Regulus' thugs had caught a whiff of what was going on, she was sure of it. The concealed entrance to the old tube station was being watched by more than it's inhabitants. The witches were careful who they let see their movements, but nothing escaped her.
Her attention shifted to the side of the museum, Montague street, where the road was lined with hotels crammed into old grey stone buildings. Just as she suspected, the Four stood there bickering amongst themselves. They were probably still annoyed that they'd given them the slip at that Halloween party and she didn't bother listening in.
"Arrow," Tristan started to scold her, but she put her hand over his mouth to silence him. She pointed towards the four vampires and his eyes widened. He knew it too. Where the Four were, Zac wouldn't be far away.
"You knew, didn't you?" he said, shaking his head.
Aya nodded and looked back towards the Four, who had now began to move off in the opposite direction towards Russell Square. They had been milling outside of a hotel at the end of the street and once they'd disappeared out of view, the door opened and Zac appeared, scowling after them.
Her heart skipped a beat and she pushed away from the wall, dragging Tristan into the off-licence, the man at the counter looking at them suspiciously. Zac began to walk towards them, his head low and the collar of his black coat pulled up. He made a sharp left, now travelling away from where they stood concealed in the doorway of the shop. He hadn't seen them.
"Are you buying anything?" the attendant grumbled.
Aya ignored the man's question and grabbed Tristan's arm, pulling him back out onto the street.
"You're goin' to follow him now?" he snorted.
"Yes," she rolled her eyes at him. "You can go if you want. But, who knows when I'll find him again." She stalked off down the street, leaving Tristan frowning after her.
Zac was walking fast, much faster than the humans around him, but no one seemed to notice. They all had their heads down, intent on getting where they were going, oblivious to others around them. Even in the throng of people, Aya could still sense him. He'd always had an imposing presence and even without the sound of his blood to guide her, she had no trouble keeping up with him.
Tristan was following behind her and she was glad he kept his distance. The last thing she wanted to hear was his disapproval. They had bigger problems than Zac's humanity. She knew it, but this was just as important to her. Tristan would step in if he was needed.
She followed him for half an hour across the city. She suspected he was just walking, trying to distract himself with no real destination. They passed many famous landmarks, beautiful sights, but he didn't stop to look up at any of them. His head hung like he was defeated.
When they eventually came to the river by Westminster, Aya knew she had to make her move or risk losing him again. It had become rather late, about two or three am by her guess, and the streets were mostly empty. The air was heavy with mist, the threat of early snow heavy around them. Zac stopped by the stone wall that marked the edge of the Thames and turned his head sharply. He had finally caught on that he was being followed.
Tristan stopped beside her and nodded. Before she could change her mind she appeared behind Zac and grasped his head in her hands. Before he could wrench himself away, she twisted, the snap of his spine sounding dull in the heavy air. He fell against her limply and her arms locked around his shoulders, easing him to the ground. How many times would she have to snap his neck before he would come back?
"Come," Tristan said, appearing at Zac's feet. "There's a place near here underground. It's safe."
She was glad he didn't have anything smart to say about what she'd just done. The knight picked up Zac's feet and helped her carry him away into the night.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Darkness.
After a world of suffering, it was calming.
It covered everything like a thick blanket. So close, refreshing. The best nights sleep he had ever had. Here it was quiet. No sound penetrated his world, he was alone and without fear. The ever creeping blackness would eventually take his thoughts, his soul. Was this what true death was like?
Slowly, the edges of his vision started to clear. Hazy at first, but the room around him was beginning to come into focus. Disoriented, he moaned, but nothing came from his parched throat.
He saw her then, nothing but a small blurred form. Blinking hard, he lifted his hands to rub his eyes, but was met with resistance. He pulled against the force only to realize he had been restrained. Chains with shackles were tightly wrapped around each wrist. Looking wildly around, he saw that his ankles were also lashed to the chair where he sat.
He began to panic, pulling harder against the chains with all his strength. The woman touched his hand lightly with her long pale fingers. Not a hallucination, after all. She was slim and shorter than a grown woman, it was impossible to tell her age. She was so familiar to him, though he couldn't place her in any of his memories. But when he looked at her, he only felt pain.
"Release me!" he yelled with such fury she stumbled back a step.
"Who are you?!" he yelled again.
"Zac," came her calm voice. "It's Aya."
The fog in his mind seemed to cling tighter as she spoke, he didn’t know where he was. Who was this woman? He yelled at her again and thrashed against his restraints.
"I'm sorry it had to come to this," she was saying. "It's for your own good."
So, he was a prisoner. "What do you want?" he snarled at her.
"I want to bring you back. You've lost your way."
"I don't want to be found," he hissed. Dropping his head, he gave it a shake, feeling woozy. "What the hell did you give me?"
"Don't worry, it's not permanent."
He groaned, shaking his head again, trying to loosen the fog. Did she slip him a vampire roofie while he was out? Dam
n it.
"Why the hell do you care?" he spat.
"Of course I care about you, Zac."
He began to laugh at this, his head lolling backwards. "You want to bring me back? That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard."
"I never stopped loving you, Zac."
"How can you stop something that hasn't even started?" he scowled at her, flexing his muscled arms against the chains.
"It started the day I first saw you."
"Love at first sight," he scoffed.
"1863," she stated, leaning back against the far wall.
1863. He'd been human then and deployed north to Virginia. An image flashed in his mind of a raven haired Englishwoman in a blue dress. Her.
"You should have killed me then. At least one of us would have enjoyed it." When he heard her heart falter, he smirked. "Chain me here for eternity, I don't care. When he comes for you, you will die over and over and over and no one will be there to stop him."
"You would let him take me?" she asked quietly, the disbelief in her voice amusing to him.
His head dropped forward and he began to laugh again, shaking his head from side to side. He hadn't realized just how far he'd come. His humanity was practically non existent. If he could go back and change that night in the theatre, he would have taken her the moment he grabbed her arm. Aya was so desperate to save him, she would have followed him anywhere. Pathetic, really. The infamous Witch Hunter, brought to her knees by a man.
"No. I don't believe it."
"Can you hear that?" he whispered, glaring up at her. Aya just stared at him, seemingly unable to formulate a response. "It's sweet, sweet, silence."
He watched as her eyes began to swirl with tears and he snorted at the irony. Now he had made her cry. With a gust of air, she stalked from the room, the door closing with a dull boom that echoed through his stone prison.
Closing his eyes, he breathed in the damp air deeply, the chains around his wrists rattling as he curled his fingers around the arm rests. That hadn't taken much at all and really, he was disappointed. How far would he have to push her until she resorted to physical harm? He had no idea, but he was going to have fun finding out.
Zac didn't know how long he'd been locked away in the prison Aya had created for him. His thoughts still hadn't cleared entirely and when he began to drift off, his head fell to the side jolting him back into wakefulness. Hissing, he blinked hard trying to stave off sleep.
The room about him was stone, the light had a green tinge like a swamp full of slime in the sunshine. Water trickled between the cracks in the wall onto the earthen floor and the air was heavy and cold with moisture. If he was still in London, he had to be somewhere near the river.
Zac tried to bend his fingers around enough to catch the metal fastening on the manacle that bound his wrists, but couldn’t create enough slack to undo it. Defeated, he slumped back and began to fall in and out of consciousness for what seemed like hours.
The sound of metal crunching on metal caught his attention and his eyes focused on the door to his right. It began to edge open and he gasped when a figure walked through the opening. There stood his love, just as the day he last saw her. Beautiful, glowing.
She walked towards him, an expression of hope etched into her features. But, his memory grasped an image of her turned back. Her reluctance and her betrayal. She left him when he needed her the most.
Letting out a slow breath, his eyes rolled and he looked away. What was she going to do this time? When he drew in another breath there was another scent on the air and it stunk like betrayal. Glancing back towards the door, he realized that this time, she wasn't alone.
When he laid eyes on the male vampire, something inside him snapped. His lip curled into a feral snarl as his fangs elongated and he lunged with so much force, the chair almost tore from where it had been welded and bolted into the steel floor. The shackles tore into the flesh of his wrists, blood running down over his clenched fists. So, she wanted a reaction? There was one for the history books.
"Get out Tristan," Aya said through her teeth as he backed out hastily, the heavy door closing behind him with a thud.
She hauled Zac backwards, slamming his body back into the chair not caring if she hurt him or not. Suddenly, she wrenched his head to the side, fangs sinking into his flesh, lips against his skin. He tried to struggle, but she held her arm across his chest in an iron grip that he couldn't break.
The sickly sent of blood filled the small room and almost drove him mad, except he was too weak to do much about it. He was so hungry and Aya was taking what little blood he had left in his system. If she took much more, he would begin to desiccate. Except he wouldn't die, he'd burn from the inside until someone gave him blood.
Groaning, his head lolled backwards, eyes rolling into his head. Why wouldn't she just let him die? He didn't have the strength to fight her when she grasped his face, making him look her in the eye.
"Zac," she whispered, her eyes searching his as she knelt in front of him.
Suddenly, his eyes were heavy, what little energy he had leaving him. Slumping forward, his head came to rest into the crook of her neck, his ragged breathing the only sign that he was still conscious. He was a fool. He wanted her back.
He shuddered as her cool hands caressed his burning face and neck. "I can't stay," he whispered into her neck.
"You can't go back to him, Zac," she reasoned. "He's destroying you."
"No," he rasped. "You don't understand."
"What I understand is that he turned you into the monster you never wanted to be. He took you to the edge and pushed you over. He took your humanity."
"Aya," he whispered, raising his head so he could see her face. "I let go of my humanity because I couldn't take the pain anymore. I didn't know what was wrong with me until you."
"Zac..." she began.
"I need you," he interrupted, not wanting her to convince him otherwise. "You want my humanity so much? Then don't piss all over it. You think you're doing me a favor? A kindness? A true kindness would have been driving the stake into my heart yourself."
"You and I both know that it's not your true self saying that," she shook her head defiantly.
"Without you I am death." He went to raise his hand, but the chain held him back, it's rattling echoing off the stone walls. Aya took a step back from him, knowing that he was still unstable, his blood still silent. "Instead you're drawing it out, starving me. I might be mental, but this is taking it to a whole new level."
"I don't want to hurt you, Zac. But you're leaving me no choice."
"I'm not coming back." He was starting to loose his grasp on his temper. "Kill me."
"No," Aya glared at him, not backing down.
"Kill me!" he roared, lunging for her, the chains holding him back a mere inch from her face. "Kill me."
She pushed him back down onto the chair roughly, the chains clashing against the metal chair.
"Why did you leave?" He couldn't help but ask.
"I left to protect you," she said quietly. "This is my task. Mine alone. If anything happens to you because of me..."
"If it's your task alone, then why is he here?" When she looked at him wide eyed and silent, he scoffed. "Your silence is deafening, Aya."
"Tristan knows things," she whispered. "He's helped a great deal."
Zac cocked his head to the side, lip curled into a snarl. "Do you love him?"
"What?" She seemed surprised by the assumption.
"It's a simple question," he spat. "Do. You. Love. Him?"
"No," she snapped. "Do you love me?"
She knew that that question would conflict him and he clenched his jaw, grinding his teeth together. He just glared at her, the edges of his vision clouding as his rage simmered.
"Have a think about it, Zac," Aya said, walking towards the door. "You've got all night."
As the door closed behind her and the bolt drove home, he roared his anger after her, but it fell on deaf ears. So, he was le
ft to his thoughts and the ever increasing madness that was driven by his hunger.
Zac was jolted awake violently, the potent scent of fresh human blood filling his senses. With a grunt, he jerked his head from side to side, unable to focus on where it was coming from.
"Want this?" Aya was standing in front of him, waving a glass filled with thick, red liquid. Blood.
Zac felt his teeth tighten and his jaw set in defiance. So, she was playing dirty.
"You can have some if you do one thing for me."
"Give up already," he rasped, trying to ignore the burn in his throat.
"Feel one thing. Anything. I don't care if it's blind hate for me. Just feel one thing."
He just stared at her, trying not to let the blood get to him.
"If you don't let your humanity back in now, it will be so much harder later on."
"No."
Aya sighed and dipped a finger into the glass and walked over to him. Before he could turn away, she smeared blood across his face and over his mouth. Jerking his face away, he held his breath, pursing his lips together. Just one taste would drive him mad. He was so hungry he would do anything-and he meant anything-for more.
She watched as he tried to fight his natural impulse to breathe. "Don't fight it," she said. "Take a deep breath."
Before long, he couldn't bare it anymore and hissed his anger. Sucking in breath after breath he cursed her as the blood began to take him, his eyes changing.
"Do you hate me? Are you angry with me?" she asked, kneeling at his feet. "Do you want to hurt me?"