"There's no need for any of this," Abner told her calmly as he closed her retractable stake. "Why don't you calm down, heal yourself, and we can explain what we expect of you."
She bent over, holding her injured bloody wrist, and for a moment, it seemed like she might take Abner up on his offer. But when she lifted her head, she was laughing, and murderous intensity filled her dark eyes.
In a flash, she pulled another stake from her boots and raised her good hand, meaning to throw it at Abner. I was sick of her games, so I grabbed the stake, and while it was still in her hand, I twisted it around and aimed it back at her chest.
"Drop it, and we can talk," I told her, with the sharp point of the stake pressed right above her heart.
She spat in my face. "I'd rather die than surrender to you."
Then she tried to bite me, and that was enough. I drove the stake through her heart, and she died with her mouth open wide, like a snake in mid-attack. I lowered her body to the ground and stayed crouched above her, wiping her blood off my hands.
"Dammit," I muttered. "I didn't want to kill anyone tonight."
"None of us ever want to kill anyone, Alice," Abner said, standing right behind me. "But she wasn't going to be reasoned with, and I have no doubt that she was going to hurt many innocent people."
"But she's so young. In time, she could've learned -"
The words died on my lips the instant I saw her ring. It was large and kind of clunky, like a masculine class ring, and it didn't seem to fit with her slender fingers. But that's not what caught my eye.
At first glance, it appeared to be a horseshoe, with a crosshatch pattern across it. But the left side of the horseshoe was thinner than the right, and the right side ended with a knob. If I looked closer, I knew I'd be able to see the more minute details of the head, and the four small feet underneath, as well as the subtle engraving of the wings on the back.
The horseshoe was really a dragon. The symbol of Dracul.
"Holy shit," I whispered, and I had to fight the very real urge to throw up.
I stood up quickly, too quickly, and I felt off-balance. Abner grabbed my arm to steady me, and I heard him asking me if I was okay but it all sounded so far away.
My mind was back in Minnesota, fighting Jonathan Evans - the vampire that killed my best friend Jane. She'd become a blood whore, addicted to the bites, and he'd gotten far too possessive of her. When she tried to quit, he'd killed her.
But she hadn't been the only one. He'd taken to murdering young blood whores all over the city, leaving them in open places for humans to find. All of them had been marked with his brand before he killed them. Using that exact same ring that was on Iris's finger.
"That's not her ring," I mumbled, my words feeling heavy and odd in my mouth. "How did she get Jonathan's ring?"
"What?" Abner asked, and he put both his hands on my shoulders to force me to look at him, to focus and form coherent sentences. "What are you talking about?"
"That ring belonged to a vampire named Jonathan Evans, but I killed him," I explained. "I killed him over five years ago. And Olivia disposed of the body. How did this baby vampire get his ring?"
Abner let go of me and crouched down beside Iris. He lifted her hand and pulled off the ring, and he inspected it in the moonlight for a second.
"This ring here?" he asked, and I nodded. "I doubt this was that Jonathan fellows ring."
"No, I know that ring. I'm positive," I insisted. I'd had nightmares about it for weeks after, picturing the mark he had left burned on Jane's body.
"I'm sure he had a ring just like this one, but I don't think this particular ring belonged to him. There must be hundreds, if not thousands in existence," Abner explained.
I froze, a solid chill running through my very core. "What are you talking about?"
"This, as you may know, is the symbol of Dracul." He pointed to the dragon. "And Dracul has a very devoted following in the form of a cult called the House of Basarab."
The air felt like it had gone from my lungs, and Abner reached out for me, but it was too late. I knelt in the alley, my hand over my mouth and tried to process everything he was saying.
Jonathan had said he wanted to expose the vampires. He murdered the girls and left them in the open so humans would have to see it, and they'd have to deal with it. While he'd never specifically said he was following a cult or part of a group, all the pieces fit.
Five and a half years ago, my best friend had been murdered by a member of the House of Basarab, and in that time, they appeared to have only grown stronger, with a larger following.
"HEY," JACK SAID AS I walked into our apartment several hours later, after clean up and conversations with Ettie. His expression fell the instant he saw me, so I knew I must've looked as bad as I felt. "Are you okay?"
I kicked off my shoes and took off my jacket. "I don't know."
He came over to me and gently touched my chin, turning my head to the side to inspect for wounds. "Were you hurt?"
"No," I said, but that felt like a lie, so I amended it with, "Not really. You remember Jane?"
"You mean your best friend Jane?" He cocked his head at me. "Of course, I remember her. But what does she have to do with anything?"
I proceeded to tell him everything that happened tonight, everything I knew about the House of Basarab, and how it all tied together to make me feel like I'd failed Jane all over again. I still blamed myself for introducing her to vampires, for letting Milo bite her, for not protecting her, for her getting murdered.
"You didn't fail Jane," Jack told me when I'd finished. "She made a lot of terrible choices all on her own, and you did what you could for her. You avenged her death."
I looked up at him. "Did I, though?"
"Absolutely," he replied confidently. "Jonathan Evans is still dead. And he may have had ties to this Basarab gang or whatever, but he was also a brash idiot, so there's a very good chance he was working without any direction from them. Especially since the blood whore murders stopped after you killed him."
"You're probably right."
"Alice, when will you learn? I'm always right."
With that, he pulled me into his arms, hugging me to him, and I rested my head against his chest. Listening to the sound of his heartbeat always made me feel much better everything.
"Tonight just brought up a lot of shit that I'd rather forget," I said.
"I know." His words were muffled in my hair, and he kissed the top of my head. "It sucks that you couldn't help Jane, and I'm sorry that you still feel guilty about that, especially since you shouldn't. But you're working with the Agency now. You save people's lives all the time."
"Well, I try to, anyway."
"You do," he insisted. "And you said that Ettie and Abner already know about the House of Basarab?"
I nodded. "I think Ettie keeps tabs on all vampire gang activity."
"So the Agency will take care of them, if they need to. And because of you and the vampires you work with, so many other girls will be saved. You can't feel bad about that."
"That's true," I agreed, even though that didn't stop me from feeling awful.
"What do you wanna do now?"
"It's late and I've had a very long night. I just wanna take a long shower and go to bed."
"Sounds perfect to me," he said.
In the shower, I usually kept the water rather cold, but tonight I relished the way the hot water felt against my bare skin and the steam that filled my lungs when I breathed in. After the shower, I threw on my pajamas and hurried back into our chilly bedroom and hopped into bed.
Jack was already asleep, but I didn't mind. I curled up next to him, knowing that in a matter of minutes, I would be asleep.
I closed my eyes, and soon after, I began see splotches of blue across my eyelids. It was almost as if someone was throwing cerulean paint directly onto my vision. Since I couldn't sleep through that, I quickly discovered that they weren't splotches at all - they were blue flowers.
br /> As soon as I opened my eyes, their sweet perfume enveloped me. Buried beneath the floral fragrance was the musty scent of dirt... and decay.
Though the sun was shining brightly above me, the way it always did, this time I couldn't feel it. I only felt cold, the way I had at the end of the last dream when I'd been pulled underground.
I sat up, squinting into the bright light, and scanned the horizon for her. Just when I thought I was alone, with the flowers growing and tangling themselves in my fingers, already holding me prisoner, I saw her.
Far off in the distance, she was rushing toward me, running over the hills of flowers, with her feet barely touching the ground. Her Victorian gown floated around, seemingly moving in slow motion, which only added to her otherworldly appearance.
"Alice," she crooned in her lyrical accent as she reached me. "Time is running out."
"I don't know how to help you!" I shouted at her, growing agitated. "I don't know what to do! You have to tell me what you want!"
"I've already told you," she said, and for the first time, her echoed voice sounded just as frustrated as I felt. "You need to help the ones you love make peace!"
"How?" I demanded.
"You must figure it out yourself. Try, Alice!" She was almost pleading with me now. "Danger is coming for you!"
Wind blew through her crimson hair - wind that only she could feel - and that's when it hit me.
In Peter's letters, he'd written descriptions of Elise. Her eyes were gray, like a heavy fog that blanketed me, and her skin was white as porcelain. Red flames of hair framed her face.
That was her, standing before me, and her lilting accent was her native Irish tongue.
All this time, no one had ever described Elise to me, and Peter had no paintings or pictures of her - at least none that I had seen. So, I hadn't been able to put it together until I read his letters, but now it was as plain as day.
"Elise?" I asked.
Her grey eyes widened and she took a small step back from me. When she moved, that's when I saw the flowers reaching up toward her, wrapping around her feet and ankles, and I wondered if this place was holding her captive, too.
"How did you know?" she asked finally, then shook her head. "No, we don't have time. We can't stay here long, or we'll be trapped forever."
"Where is here, exactly?" I asked.
"It's neither life nor death, heaven nor earth, but somewhere in between," she explained quickly. "It's the only place I can go to reach you."
"Why me? Why not Peter? Why not anyone else that knows you?" I asked, and I could already feel the vines creeping up my arms, biting into my flesh as they tried to pull me down.
"He won't let me in. He's closed himself off to me completely. But you were open, and you're strong. You can do the things you need to."
"What does that mean? Can you stop being so cryptic?"
"I can't!" Elise shouted as I fought against the flowers as hard as I could. "I only get glimpses of your world, of the joys and the dangers ahead of you. I only know that the window for peace and happiness is closing, and you must help him."
"How?" I yelled, but the flowers were pulling me under, burying me under the cold ground, and my struggles did nothing to dig me out.
WITH JACK STILL SLEEPING, I crept out into the living room and grabbed my laptop. After the dream I'd had - although "dream" was definitely not the right word for it - I knew I wouldn't be able to fall back to sleep, so I decided to contact the one person I knew that might be able to help and would talk to me about it. Assuming of course, he was awake at such a ridiculously early hour.
Are you up? I texted him.
Soon after, a text message arrived: Yes. What do you need?
Can we Skype? I asked, deciding that a visual conversation would be better.
A minute later, a pleasant tone rang from my laptop, indicating that a video chat request was coming in. I accepted it, and Ezra's face appeared on my screen. His hair was unkempt, and behind him, I could see the mess of construction in his office from the restoration project he was doing on his manor in London.
"What are you doing up so early?" he asked, his deep voice sounding wonderful even through my laptop speakers.
"I needed to talk to someone, and since you usually have all the answers, I thought I would go to you," I said.
Ezra laughed warmly at that. "You give me too much credit, but I'll be happy to help if I can."
"What do you know about ghosts?" I asked.
He looked taken aback, his mahogany eyes widening slightly, but he answered reasonably, "Not very much. I don't think I've encountered one. Why? Is this about the thing that happened at Jack's shop when we were visiting?"
"Sort of." I shifted uncomfortably in my chair, hoping Ezra wouldn't think me as foolish as I felt. "I think I'm being haunted. By Elise."
"Elise?" he asked, incredulous. "Peter's Elise? How do you even know it was her?"
"I found some of his letters, and he described her," I said, then added, "And then she admitted to being Elise."
"What does she say she wants?"
"She's very vague, and says she contacted me because Peter is closed off to her."
"Peter's closed off to everybody, so that makes sense," Ezra muttered.
"I think she wants me to solve her murder," I confessed.
It was the only logical reason I could come up with for her to be pestering me. That didn't explain her warnings of danger, but maybe she was just saying that to motivate me to get it done.
"Why now?" Ezra asked. "And why didn't she come to me or Peter or her friend Catherine, years ago, when it might have been possible?"
I shrugged. "I don't know. She never said to solve her murder specifically, but she said that she wanted me to help give Peter peace."
He pursed his lips. "Honestly, I don't think anything will give Peter more peace than he already has."
"But solving her murder might help him, right?" I asked hopefully.
"I really can't say," Ezra said, but he didn't sound optimistic.
"What can you tell me about Elise?" I asked. "Was she kind? Is there a chance that she's just messing with me because she's a vindictive old ghost?"
"I can't presume to know what she's like as a ghost, but as a vampire, she was very kind and loyal." Ezra leaned back in his chair as he launched into his story of her. "She was very young when Peter met her, and I believe she'd only been turned for a year or two. So, she was rather naive and innocent, and it didn't help that she was a farm girl, which at that time meant she was uneducated. Peter actually taught her to read and write."
"Did she love him?" I asked.
"Oh, absolutely," he replied immediately. "I was with him when they met, and it was palpable. The way they looked at each other, true love just radiated from them."
I ignored the tiny pang of jealousy I felt, the same pang I felt every time someone talked about how much Peter loved Elise, and how easy it had been for them to be together. I loved Jack, but it didn't change the fact that I wished everything hadn't been so difficult and painful in the beginning.
"Cate told me she thought they might not have been each other's soulmates," I said.
"I don't know exactly how either Elise or Peter felt about each other, but based on everything that I witnessed, they seemed as blood bonded for each other as any other couple I've seen," Ezra said.
Even me and Peter? Or would you say me and Jack? I wanted to ask, but I didn't. Not when Jack might overhear, and I didn't want to derail the conversation about Elise. I had a haunting that I needed to deal with before I started worrying about the implications of soulmates and blood bonds.
Instead, I asked, "So you think they were meant for each other?"
"As far as I know, yes," he said. "Why did Catherine think they weren't? Did she give you examples?"
"She just said that she never liked Peter."
Ezra nodded, as if confirming his own thoughts. "I always wondered if that was the case. She was polite to hi
m - to us both, really - but it seemed... too polite. Like a concierge at a fancy hotel. You know they don't really like you, but they're kissing your ass like you're the Queen of England."
I laughed. "Yeah, I think I know what you mean."
"What does it matter if Catherine never liked Peter?" he asked, returning to the topic at hand.
"She said that she's Elise's maker, so she should like whoever Elise was bonded with."
He raised his eyebrows. "That's news to me. I'd always been told that a stranger was Elise's maker."
"So do you think Elise was lying then?" I asked. "Or that Cate is lying now? And why would she lie?"
"I doubt that Elise was lying. It wasn't really her style," he said. "But there are plenty of reasons why Catherine may have hidden the truth from Elise about her real maker."
"Like what?" I pressed.
"Elise had a lot of mixed feelings about becoming a vampire," Ezra explained. "Her whole family had died in the famine, and I think she had a great deal of survivor's guilt. I had long speculated that Elise had actually been the one to kill her father.
"The story she told was that her father paid a vampire to turn her to save her from starving to death, but she never mentioned what became of her father after that," he went on. "When we met her, it was only three or four years after she turned, but he wasn't around, and she never explained his absence. At least not to me."
"You think Cate could've turned her, and then in the whole mess of the change, Elise either forgot her or blocked her out or something, and then attacked her dad?" I asked, thinking back to my own transformation.
It had been an awful, painful mess, where I was only vaguely aware of what was happening through the whole process. I did distinctly remember what happened right before, when Jack convinced me to drink his blood so I would turn. But if I hadn't known Jack, and that moment wasn't so traumatic - with me being certain that Peter was about to kill him - then I might not have remembered it at all.
Milo didn't remember much before he'd turned, and Jack had only just found out a few years ago that Mae had been the reason Peter had to turn him. Jack had only remembered going to the vampire club, then everything after that was a blur until he woke up as a vampire.
"That's a definite possibility," Ezra said, nodding. "I always suspected that whoever turned her left her too soon instead of helping her through the transformation. But it effects everyone differently. Elise's may have been faster and more chaotic, because she was most likely half-starved before she turned. There's a chance that Catherine meant to come back and help her, and just arrived too late."