"That's quite a while ago."
Ezra stared off, remembering. "It was after Elise died. We went back to see where she was buried, since we hadn't been with her."
"Where were you and Peter?"
"We were in America, trying to start a new life, but Elise stayed behind in Ireland at first. She'd never left her home. She hadn't wanted to, but soon the locals would start to talk that she wasn't aging. So, we'd all made these plans, and once things were set up in America, Elise was to come join us.
"But then, Catherine had sent word to Peter, informing him that Elise had been killed." Ezra paused. "Really, I think Peter already knew. He'd been sick for a month before the letter came, throwing up and waking up in cold sweats. Physically, it was terrible. That was the blood bond breaking."
"He felt that? Even with an ocean between them?" I asked in awe.
"The bond is something that extends far beyond space and time." Ezra sounded both mystical and utterly forlorn as he stared off. "Peter dug her up."
"What?" I asked, confused.
He licked his lips. "When we got to Ireland. He couldn't truly believe Elise was dead. Not until he saw her. So, he dug her up, and she hadn't decayed at all. She was just as lovely as the day she died."
"How did Catherine react?" I asked.
"She was nearly as devastated as Peter, I'd say. But she could be hard to get a read on sometimes," Ezra elaborated. "Peter had tried setting Catherine and I up, but she wasn't exactly my type."
"What type was she?" I asked.
"Have you been to a human bar when there were loud girls, usually celebrating some rite of passage, and they slam down shots of tequila and shout woo every time they do?" he asked. "Catherine was that kind of girl."
I laughed at the specificity of his example. "So you didn't care for her?"
"No, I liked her fine. She just wasn't the type of girl I was interested in romantically."
"Did she have a falling out with Peter or anything?" I pressed. "Is there any reason I should be worried about her?"
"I don't know," Ezra admitted. "As far as I know, she and Peter were on good terms the last time they spoke. But I can't think of any reason for her to react the way that Olivia described. That leads me to believe that there is something more going on."
I hesitated before asking, "Should I contact Peter?"
He exhaled deeply. "No," he said finally. "Peter tends to act emotionally and dramatically, especially when it comes to his love, and I don't want him doing something reckless."
"That is an understatement," I muttered.
Ezra laughed lightly before turning his gaze on me. "Are you going to look for her?"
"Do you think I should?"
"I don't know," he replied honestly before adding, "But Olivia did call you for a reason."
"I know."
His dark eyes rested heavily on me. "I've known Olivia for a very long time, and I've come to trust her judgment."
"I was afraid of that."
Just at that exact moment, Jack appeared in our bedroom door. "Afraid of what?"
"I think I have to go to Prague," I said, since beating around the bush wouldn't do any good.
Bobby poked his head in the door, his eyes bouncing between Jack, Ezra, and me. "Why are you guys all hanging out here? Is there some kind of party?"
"Alice is going to Prague," Jack replied.
Bobby took that as an invitation and walked into the room. "Oh, is it for a mission?"
"Kind of," I said, then went on to explain everything I'd learned from Olivia, with Ezra adding in his opinion when it applied.
"That sounds like a mission to me," Bobby said when I'd finished. "I should come with."
I shook my head. "You're going on your honeymoon."
"Not until Wednesday," he persisted. "And we're just going to Paris. I can fly out from Prague and meet Milo there if I need to."
"That doesn't sound very romantic," I pointed out, but he just waved me off.
"I'll go talk it over with him," he said as he turned and jogged out to the living room to get the go ahead from his husband.
That left Jack, standing in front of me with his arms folded over his chest. "Do you really think you need to do this?"
Ezra stood up. "I'll leave you two to sort this out." When he left the bedroom, he closed the door behind him.
"I don't know," I said. "Olivia thinks I do. Ezra seems to think so, too. So, I guess I should."
"Well, if everyone thinks you should, then who am I to stand in the way?" Jack asked, and he didn't sound upset exactly, but he clearly wasn't happy about it either.
"What's bothering you about this?" I asked him bluntly.
"I just thought we were done with these wild goose chases after Peter. He has his own life now, doing whatever he wants, and we have ours here." He gestured to the room to make his point.
I understood his reservations. Even though he and Peter had gotten to a good place and genuinely seemed to enjoy spending time together again, that didn't mean that Jack wanted me getting hurt over Peter. Well, he never wanted me getting hurting at all, but going on a potentially dangerous mission because of Peter had to stir up a lot of bad memories for him.
"I'm not going after Peter," I reasoned. "Peter's not even going to be there, and he doesn't know what I'm doing. This is different. This is more like a job. I just need to make sure everything is okay and everyone is safe."
"Okay," Jack relented. "Just be careful."
"I always am," I said as I stood up.
Jack reached for me, pulling me into his arms. "I wish I believed that."
"You should." I kissed him and lingered in his arms. "Did you talk to Ezra about that thing yesterday with the psychic?"
"Not yet."
"I thought last night you said you were going to."
He leaned his head back, but kept his arms around me. "I know. The timing doesn't feel right. We're all just hanging out, and I don't want to bum everyone out. And it's probably nothing. Like I said yesterday, she probably just doesn't know what she's talking about."
"Ezra's here for another day. Please talk to him while I'm gone?" I asked.
"Fine. I will." He smiled down at me. "For you."
I kissed him again, deeper this time. "Thank you."
"Good news!" Bobby announced as he threw open the bedroom door without knocking. "Milo says its fine if I go to Prague!"
"Great!" Jack pulled away from me, grinning broadly. "And while you two are there, doing your vampire investigations or whatever, make sure you find time to stop at any one of their fancy shops to get me something nice. It's only four more shopping days until my birthday."
"I won't even be here for your birthday," Bobby reminded him, not for the first time. Jack had been teasing them about getting married so close to his birthday ever since they'd picked the date.
"So that means I should get double presents from you," Jack decided. "Some from Prague, some from Paris. Maybe you could take a long drive around Europe and pick me up something from every country."
BOBBY HAD LEANED THE SEAT back, resting his feet on the dashboard of my Mercedes SLS AMG, as I sped the silver coupe down the empty stretch of highway through the German countryside. The moonlight splashed across the forests and fields that surrounded us, and Bobby stared out the window, watching the night fly by.
"You can sleep," I suggested since we were reaching the half-way point of our GPS predicted nine-hour journey to Prague.
"I can never sleep at night," Bobby reminded me wearily. "I can hardly ever sleep at all, really."
"That can't be good for you."
He groused, "I know. Milo wants me to see a doctor, because he wants me to extend my life for as long as possible. But I just don't know how me sleeping like a normal person would fit into your lifestyle."
"You're really giving up a lot to be with Milo."
"It's not much of a sacrifice when you really love somebody." Bobby turned to look at me then. "But you know that.
"
We didn't say much the rest of the drive, both of us preferring to listen to the playlist on his iPhone titled "Road Trip Mission" that he had specially curated for these kinds of things. It was an eclectic mix, bouncing from Chase & Status to Tove Lo, with an odd cover of Bruce Springsteen sandwiched in there.
On the final leg of the journey, Bobby finally managed to doze, resting his head against the glass of the window and draping his Member's Only jacket over himself like a blanket. But he awoke when I slowed down as I reached the end of the long driveway that my GPS assured me was the location, per the address Olivia had texted me.
We were east of the city, away from all the traffic and houses and congestion, in rolling hillsides overtaken by large oak and beech trees, with thick trunks and winding branches. The sun had begun to rise over the horizon, lending an eerie pinkish-orange tint to the low-hanging fog.
Bobby stretched in his seat and asked, "Are we there?"
"Almost," I said as I drove slowly down the winding gravel road.
"You have reached your destination," my GPS alerted me in a cheery voice, but I had yet to see anything other than trees, and I couldn't imagine that Olivia would camp out in the forest.
"Are you sure Olivia gave you the right address?" Bobby asked.
"I'm pretty -" I started to answer, but I finally saw it as I neared the top of the hall, the dark spires poking up into the sky.
I'd never seen a building loom, not really, not like this. The dark stone, all done in detailed baroque style, looked ominous against the gray clouds behind it, and the wrought iron blocking every window only added to that. It was like a gothic horror movie had come to life.
"Holy shit." Bobby gasped and leaned forward, peering up out the window at it. "It's a castle!"
"Olivia said it was a manor," I corrected him half-heartedly as I parked in front of the broad stone steps that led up toward the vestibule.
He shot me a look. "Are you sure this is the right place?"
"Well, there's only one way to find out." I turned the car off and opened the door, so the gullwing door swung up, and I climbed out.
"If this is the wrong place, they could shoot us, though," he suggested as he scrambled out of the car behind me. "Or they could call Dr. Frankenstein on us and chase us out with pitchforks. This seems like that kind of place."
"Frankenstein was at the receiving end of the pitchfork chase," I pointed out as I went up the steps toward the house/manor/castle.
Bobby grabbed our bags from the trunk, and then he raced up the stairs to meet me. I'd just reached the massive iron and wood front door, wondering if I should knock and if anyone would even hear me, when the door opened.
A small older woman greeted us with a polite but cold smile. She had the sallow complexion of someone that didn't see the sun often, and callouses and dry skin cracked her hands. Her graying hair was pulled back in a tight bun. The black dress uniform she wore was neatly pressed, but her ergonomic shoes were scuffed and scraped from use.
"Dobre rano pani," she said.
"Sorry, I don't speak Czech." I glanced over to Bobby for help, but he just shrugged emptily. Our careers required travelling, so we'd studied up on several different languages, but there were too many for us to be fluent in everything.
"English?" she asked with a thick accent.
"Yes, we speak English!" I replied brightly. "We are looking for Olivia Smith. She said she was staying here?"
"Ano, yes, slecno Smithova." The woman nodded, her thin smile still plastered across her face. "She is here. She told me guests would be arriving, but she is sleeping for the day. I shall take you to your rooms. You can rest before she awakes."
The woman opened the door wider, and she did a small bow us as we walked by her. The vestibule opened into a grand front hall, with marble tiles, an enormous chandelier, and a double-staircase curved along either wall.
"There's no way that this place is not haunted," Bobby commented as he admired the paintings that hung on the dark walls.
"Zavazadla?" the woman asked, pointing at Bobby. "Bags?"
"Um, yeah, sure." He handed over the bags, and then we proceeded to follow her up the long stairs, presumably toward our rooms.
As we went upstairs, I noticed a reoccurring theme in the paintings that sent a cold chill down my spine. Based on the clothing and the style of paintings, I would say they were all from different time periods - a real exhibition of fashion through the centuries.
Sometimes they featured whole families, a man, woman, child, and a family pet, like an aristocratic looking wolfhound. Others featured just a child with a solitary adult, occasionally a regal-looking young gentleman but more often, just a beautiful, poised lady.
But they all had one thing in common. A young girl, posed front and center. In most pictures, she appeared to be about eight or nine, though some stylistic choices had her appearing younger, while other had her appearing older.
Because the pictures had been painted by different people, it wasn't immediately obvious that it was the same girl. Her wavy brown hair was worn a hundred different ways; her cheeks went from painted full and rosy in some to pale and taut in another.
The one true constant was her eyes. Somehow, every artist managed to capture them perfectly. The brilliance and beauty of the blue contrasting with a taciturn, otherworldliness to them. She may have looked like a child, but her eyes were ancient.
As we reached the top of the stairs, I finally spotted the painting with the most familiar face. Both the young girl and her "mother" were adorned in opulence - their dark dresses were decorated to the max, with ribbons, grommets, and ridiculously wide collars, perfectly matched with the wide hips of their gowns.
The girl had a smug, half-smile on her face, reminiscent of the Mona Lisa. The woman behind her had her hand on her shoulder, her fingers bedazzled with jewels of all kinds, and she already had the beginnings of the hazy grin she would eventually be renowned for.
The woman was Olivia, and the girl in every painting was her maker, the child vampire Rebekah.
"This is Rebekah's house," I realized.
"Rebekah?" Bobby echoed, scrunching his face in confusion, but then I saw the realization hit him - his eyes widening and his steps slowed. "Oh hell."
BOBBY AND I HAD ONLY met Rebekah once, back before I was a vampire hunter and was still in training with Olivia. It had been when Mae had turned her great-granddaughter Daisy in a futile attempt to save her from a terminal illness, but then Mae had learned the hard way that no good every came from a child becoming an immortal monster.
But before that, before Mae collided with the terrible reality and had to snap Daisy's neck so hard that it decapitated her, we'd been trying to find a way to make it work. So, Olivia had introduced us to Rebekah, who had agreed to help Daisy cope with the unimaginable nightmare of being a little girl with an insatiable bloodlust and eternal agonizing hunger pains.
As tragic as everything had turned out, I had to admit that I honestly felt a great deal of relief when Daisy died. After meeting Rebekah, I had less hope than before. There was this cold, eeriness to her, like a demon-possessed porcelain doll.
And now I was sleeping in a spare bedroom of Rebekah's gothic castle. Heavy drapes hung over all the windows, blocking out in the faintest hint of light. The four-post bed sat in the center of the spacious room, draped with wonderfully thick blankets that were surprisingly comfortable, especially given the fact that they had a distinctly musty scent to them.
I had woken up, but I hadn't gotten out of bed yet to get my phone, which sat charging on the far side of the room. The thing about old manors like this is that they weren't exactly built with outlets and electronic devices in mind.
So, when the door slowly creaked open, I had no idea what time it was, and since I didn't feel entirely safe in Rebekah's home, I tensed up. But it only took a second for me to tune into the familiar rhythm of Bobby's heartbeat.
"Is everything okay?" I asked as he crept i
nside my room.
"Oh, good, you're awake." He closed the door behind him. "Is there a light switch in here? I can't find lights anywhere in this damned place."
"It's probably all lit with candles or kerosene or something ridiculous that," I muttered.
My vampire eyesight was far superior to Bobby's, and I watched him as he felt around clumsily in the dark. He was barefoot, wearing the pair of jeans we'd arrived in yesterday paired with a V-neck tee shirt that showed off the tattoos scrawled across this chest.
"Marco," I said, in attempt to guide him by the sound of my voice.
"I'm supposed to say 'Marco.' You say 'Polo.'"
"Whatever. Polo. You're just about at the bed."
He finally reached the bed and climbed into the bed beside me, hurriedly crawling under the covers, reminding me of a little kid rushing to hide from monsters.
"It's frickin freezing." He shivered. "Like I get used to you and Milo always liking it cold, but this is ridiculous."
Vampires didn't feel cold, not the way humans did, and in fact, we tended to prefer it. But it was cold enough in this place that I half-expected to see my breath fog up the air.
"Did you sleep?" I asked him.
"Some," he replied noncommittally, then he lowered his voice to just above a whisper. "Do you think this is a trap?"
"Olivia likes me. Why would she want to set me up?" I asked, but I couldn't shake the sense of dread that clung to me ever since I first spied the manor above the hill.
"I don't know," he admitted. "Things just don't feel right to me."
"Well, good thing you came with then," I said. "You can watch my back."
Even though he was buried under the covers in a darkened room, I swear I saw him puff up with pride.
There was one quick rap at the door before it opened, without waiting for a response. The woman who had let us into the house initially had eventually introduced herself by the mononym Myska before showing us to our rooms. Myska came into my room now and pushed an odd-looking knob near the door, which caused the chandelier above to flick on, bathing the room in dull yellow light.
"Oh, ty vole!" She put a hand to her chest, looking surprised at the sight of Bobby huddled in bed beside me, probably because she remembered giving him his own (much smaller) room at the far end of the hall this morning.