At least I knew those shadows were gone, same with the ones that had infected Peter. So, how many were there? On a whim, I spied on the succubus with my other sight. No shadows, but her energy was almost as ominous since I knew what she was.
I listened for Carl, comforted by his pulsing presence. If only I could help him. It all might have been worth something.
In the early hours of the morning, a phone call awoke me.
“We have a problem,” was all Daimhín said. Immediately, I thought succubus and rushed to get ready to meet her.
I was wrong.
In Daimhín’s living room sat a group of vampires I had never seen before.
“Is this it?” a dark-haired male asked in a thick, Liverpudlian accent.
Daimhín sighed, shaking her head at me. “Yes, Victor. This is it. Ms. Delaney, our friends here have a dilemma. It seems our recent beast problem has made its way to Liverpool. The British Vampire Association is insisting we deal with it. These three vampires are their representatives, sent here to resolve the situation.”
“Liverpool? There’s been nothing in the news about mass murder over there.” I eyed the trio with suspicion.
Victor glared at me. “That’s because we don’t air our dirty laundry in public.”
The brunette female next to him nodded. “No point in causing hysteria. We’ll deal with this quietly and then forget all about it. It doesn’t have to be a big deal.”
“If it’s not a big deal, then why haven’t you dealt with it already?” I knew my question was a mistake the second the words popped out of my mouth.
Victor full-on growled, while the woman looked embarrassed. The third, a bored-looking man with white hair, stared somewhere over my head as though I didn’t exist.
“We’ve tried,” the woman said snappishly. “It doesn’t discriminate. It’s been draining vampires, too. Nasty business. Nobody wants to risk it. You people caused the problem. You can fix it.”
“Actually, vampires in Spain created the formula. So technically, they caused the problem,” I said, biting my lip when Daimhín hissed at me.
“We need to go to the Council now,” the older-looking vampire said. “Cass has already arranged a meeting to see who else they’re offering to send.”
The female, Cass apparently, nodded. “We accept your offering,” she said to Daimhín.
Offering? Great.
“Are you sure this is it?” Victor persisted.
“Positive,” Daimhín replied. “Ava will travel with me. Winston, you may use one of my vehicles, along with your colleagues, of course. My own bodyguard, Zion, is already waiting to drive you.”
The white-haired vampire nodded his thanks. The trio trooped out, followed by docile humans that I hadn’t even noticed when I entered the room.
Daimhín waited a few minutes before gesturing for the vampires and me to follow her outside. A stretch limo waited with the engine running. Another pulled away as we stepped outside.
“Are you kidding me?” I whispered to Daimhín once I was sure the British trio wouldn’t hear me. “You’re sending me to Liverpool?”
She inclined her head. “If need be. Don’t worry. The Council will probably send them packing. They won’t be dictated to by foreign vampires. But we can’t be the ones to say no.”
“Exactly how powerful are these vampires?”
Daimhín frowned. “Winston’s the overseer of the British Vampire Association. All of the vampires in Britain are part of the BVA, whether they like it or not. Winston spent many centuries consolidating his power when others were still wreaking havoc like barbarians. Victor is still a muck savage who happened to be lucky enough to have a powerful creator. He hasn’t left Winston’s side since his rebirth.”
“What about the woman?”
“Cass is a liaison of sorts, his voice to the ruling powers. She’s managing their bid to bargain their way onto their version of the Council. She’s a sneaky one. Be careful what you say in front of her.”
“But what do they want?” I couldn’t figure out why they would come all the way to Ireland to kick up a fuss.
“Winston’s essentially created an army of vampires. He’s just waiting for his chance to unleash them on the weakest opponent. He’s likely interested in spreading his domain across the water, and we happen to be the easiest mark.”
“Why does he have to come with us?” I asked, referring to Jules who kept drooling a little too close to me.
“Because he can’t be trusted on his own,” Eloise piped up.
Other vampires accompanied us, too, mostly bodyguards. I began to feel claustrophobic.
“Has anyone been to see the succubus yet?” I asked.
“Yes. She refuses. Rudely, too.” Daimhín sucked her top teeth, and I could see it pissed her off to be refused by a demon.
“So, what should I do?”
“Own him,” Eloise said in a sing-song voice.
“Don’t advise,” Daimhín snapped at her, but it got me thinking. Could that be the answer? To take him out of the ownership of a succubus, I just had to own him again? Perhaps the original bond had some kind of precedence. Or another supernatural term I had yet to learn.
“Thanks, Eloise.” I tried not to wince when she gave me a fanged smile in return.
We seemed to be moving in the wrong direction, but I figured we were heading to neutral territory. Perhaps other entities weren’t supposed to enter the Council’s domain or some such nonsense. I didn’t care. I just wanted the trip over and done with so I could get back to dealing with Carl.
I was soon bored and agitated. The lack of heartbeats and breathing was positively irritating, an unusual side effect of being stuck in a car with a group of vampires.
“Have you ever heard of something infecting people, like gripping onto their souls, and making them do bad things?” I asked, trying to sound matter-of-fact.
“De-mons,” Eloise sang.
“Haven’t I told you?” Daimhín chided before slapping Jules’s hand away from mine. I rolled my eyes and inched away from the dysfunctional vampire family.
I tried to ask more questions about demons, but Daimhín refused to let Eloise answer.
“What about someone using a soul, like trapping it to them?” I attempted to sound like a curious neophyte searching for the strangest occurrences possible.
Daimhín tutted. “That’s just one step away from necromancy.”
I settled back into my seat and watched Eloise sing lullabies to Jules. Every time I saw him, he acted even stranger than the previous time. Eloise treated him like a doll or a puppy, and I wondered how much of her was as childlike as the day she was turned.
We stopped shortly before I lost my mind. The meeting place was in a closed restaurant. A sleepy-looking shifter was opening the doors when we arrived. We all gathered inside and waited for the Council to appear, the British vampires frequently checking the time in disgust.
By the time the Council traipsed in, the vampires were muttering complaints and throwing dirty glances at each other. I was shocked to see how frail Koda looked in comparison to how he had at the trial. The transparency thing tended to make him look ancient, but the opaque lapses showed tired eyes and a serious amount of wrinkling. Fionnuala and Erossi appeared as haughty as ever, and Gabe just looked pissed.
“What’s this about?” Gabe snapped.
“This is about you driving your mistakes onto our territory,” Victor shouted, surprising everyone.
“I’m sure you can deal with it,” Gabe said sullenly.
“No. We demand you send troops to take care of this,” the vampire continued.
“Troops?” Erossi laughed without humour. “We don’t need troops. Look what we have.” He mockingly pointed at me. I knew there was a reason I couldn’t stand him.
Victor flexed his fingers as if in agitation, but when he spoke, his voice was calm. “This mutation needs to be captured and tested. The strain is warped. She drinks blood of her kind… that
couldn’t have been the plan. The Spanish deny knowledge. She’s the only real link we have. As discussed with Daimhín, if we can study her, we can figure out what exactly they’ve been doing. We’re in a much better position for this.”
“We can do the testing, once we retrieve the beast,” Gabe said
Winston smiled, and it was probably one of the most terrifying things I had ever seen. “Oh, no. If she’s on our soil, we decide what happens to her. As you sent her to us, you can help us capture her. But we’re keeping her.”
I had a bad, bad feeling about that.
“We don’t have Guardians to spare,” Fionnuala said. “Too many were taken out in the hunt for the mutation. It’s too much to ask.”
“This has to stop,” Winston warned. “If you don’t deal with this, we’ll take it further. Do you feel like a war in these times? You have until tomorrow night. We’ll be leaving then.”
“You dare threaten us?” Erossi scoffed.
“There are many more of us. And the higher Councils will take our side. War will come your way, you arrogant fool. Some of us are more than willing to take the fight to you. Remember that. This is not a choice.”
“We’ll send the girl,” Koda said. “She can handle the creature.”
“Alone? When our warriors couldn’t?” Cass sounded as if her head might pop off her shoulders with shock.
“She knows its movements. She has experience,” Koda said tiredly.
“Are you quite mad?” Gabe managed to sound even more irritated than I felt.
Koda rose to his feet. “No more of this. We send the girl. That’s all. If you think she can’t handle it, assign her some help yourself.”
“We can discuss it tonight and give you our final demand tomorrow,” Cass said, but there was hatred in her eyes.
I looked directly at Gabe. “I don’t want to go to Liverpool.” He shook his head slightly, but I really couldn’t leave. “I have things to deal with here, things that are urgent. A succubus is killing my friend, I have to—”
“Our final demand will be delivered tomorrow,” Winston insisted. He acted as if I hadn’t spoken at all.
“Fine,” Gabe snapped. “I’m sure Daimhín will accommodate you past dawn. We’ll meet again.”
The vampires all left, but Gabe grabbed my arm and held me there.
“I’ll take you home,” he said under his breath. “Are they gone?” he asked a nearby Guardian.
The Guardian headed outside, leaving the room full of tense supernaturals. I shifted uncomfortably, and Gabe’s grip on my arm tightened.
“They’ve left,” the Guardian said from the doorway.
“Good. Koda, what are you thinking?”
The Dryad shrugged. “I’m tired, Gabe. We can’t afford a fight. Let the girl deal with it. They can’t bring a war if we comply.”
“We can protect our land,” Erossi said, the veins in his neck straining against his skin.
“Now is not the time,” Fionnuala said, siding with Koda. “It will happen, but not now. Not over this. We can’t afford to lose any more Guardians to this. The girl is no loss to us.”
“Great, thanks,” I muttered.
Gabe said goodbye to the others and dragged me to his car. He turned the key so violently, I was sure it would break. The wheels squealed as he pulled away and sped dangerously along twisting country lanes to get back into the city.
“Don’t ever speak up like that again. Not in front of others and certainly not if you’re going to act like you have a choice.”
“You can’t make me go,” I said.
“I don’t have time for this, Ava. Do you want to fight in a war? Do you want everyone you know to die, everything you know to be destroyed? Because that will happen. This is an excuse. They’re already fishing for a battle for some reason. Problem is, Becca has given a reason for every other supernatural over there to back them up on this. None of us have a choice. We have to be seen to take action.”
“But the succubus—”
“I don’t care about the damn succubus. I don’t care about your human friend, either. All I care about right now is avoiding a war. You’re leaving tomorrow. Get your head in gear and deal with Becca once and for all. They want her alive for a reason, but they can deal with the mess that will surely follow. We’re here to protect this territory. If you want to survive, you’ll have to make hard choices, just like we have by letting Becca go to them. Could you really live with yourself if you could have prevented a war? Do you really think the humans here are equipped for anything close to a war?”
My stomach turned because I understood. One life or many lives. I didn’t even know for sure how to help Carl. All I knew was that time was of the essence. He didn’t have days left. I had less than twenty-four hours to come up with a solution, and I wasn’t even close to a solid, workable idea.
Chapter Fourteen
My fingers shook uncontrollably. “All I need to know is if it could work.” I looked up at the two men standing before me, unwilling to accept the doubt in their eyes.
“I don’t know if an experienced vampire could do such a thing, never mind you. It could go wrong. Badly wrong,” Eddie said.
“It’s going to go wrong for Carl if I don’t try something. Daimhín called me herself before dawn. A private jet will be ready at midnight. If I’m not there, everyone’s screwed. It’s not even that. I should go. They need the Guardians here, what’s left of them. They’re still recruiting replacements. They won’t have a decent system in place for a while. If I can deal with this, it might give them time if something else does happen.”
“Maybe anarchy’s the best thing that could happen to this country,” Eddie said. “Starting fresh could work.”
“Is he serious?” I asked.
Peter shrugged. “Carl doesn’t have time for us arguing about anything besides him. He’s going to die. Is there any way she can stop it?”
Eddie tapped his fingertips against his chin. “She has prior claim. If she tried, and managed to make Carl hers again, it might negate the mark.”
“Well, good. I’ll try it.”
“Think about this, Ava. Think how hard it was last time. For both of you. This will be much worse. He’s still recovering from that. Now, he’s weakened further by this succubus, and you’ll be taking his mind again. There’s only so many times you can twist someone’s mind before they lose it completely.” Eddie’s face reddened. “When you break the bond, it’ll hurt more than before because it will have solidified. He could die when you dissolve your ownership. And that’s if you even manage to do it. You’ve never done it on purpose. You can’t control it, and you needed a vampire to dissolve the bond last time. It’s very risky. If he dies while bonded to you, you will suffer. That won’t help your chances against Becca.”
I blushed. “Actually, I sort of did practice with it before. Kind of.”
“On me?” Peter blurted, horror clearly on his face.
“What? No! Jesus, are we really back to that?” I was deeply offended by his automatic response.
“Sorry, old habits. But even you have to admit how off you’ve been lately.” He cleared his throat. “Who, then? The copper at the checkpoint that night?”
I shuffled my feet. “Him, too.”
“Ava!”
“Okay, don’t judge me. I was desperate. My landlord kept coming around for money. I asked him for more time, and he said okay. Then, he changed his mind and came back. I just used my influence a teeny, tiny bit, and got him to go away. It didn’t last, and it wasn’t a full bond or anything, but it was definitely some of the same thing I used on Carl. I understand it now, and I think I can use it.”
Eddie nodded as though my explanation was satisfactory, but Peter had a disappointed look on his face that killed me.
“Why are you so hard on me?” I demanded, unable to keep my thoughts to myself anymore.
“I thought you were better than me.” His words hit hard, but I had to push it out of my mind
. For Carl.
“If I… own Carl again, can you protect him while I’m gone? Here, where the succubus can’t get to him? I won’t break the bond until I know he’s gotten his strength back up a bit. Don’t say it. I already know the longer he’s bonded, the worse it will be, but it could be the only thing that saves him. Daimhín’s tried, Gabe’s not interested, and nobody else sees a way out for Carl. Because he’s just a human, and that freaking sucks.”
Eddie leaned his hand on my shoulder, and I felt something cool penetrate my skin. It calmed me down, but I shrugged him off, hating when he used magic uninvited.
“I’ll take care of him,” Eddie said. “I can give him something that’ll help him sleep. It’ll be the only way he won’t go looking for you. I’ll keep him safe, but I can’t guarantee your actions won’t kill him. If you die while you’re bonded, he will, too. Remember that, Ava Delaney.”
“Do me a favour,” I said to Peter.
“What?”
“Stay with Eddie while I’m gone. Don’t go near that succubus. Or Coyle.”
Peter paused. “Something you’re not saying?”
I glanced from one man to the other, wondering how much I could trust Eddie. I got up and paced around the room, trying to figure out what to say. “Yeah. Yeah, there is. I killed a man. A human.”
“What? When? What are you talking about?” Peter stuttered over his words. Eddie sat down and waited, but something crossed his eyes, enough surprise for me to be sure he had no clue what had happened.
“It was the shadows,” I said, seeing the man’s face again. “Eddie, what do you know about demon possession?”
“A fair amount. It’s been a while. Is this something I should be brushing up on?”
I glanced at him and saw that, for a change, he was extremely worried.
“I’m not sure. Peter, can you explain to Eddie about the shadows? I need to get moving. Just be careful. I think Coyle sent that man after me. The shadows had totally taken him over. When I got rid of them, he died. I think maybe your tattoo protected you that day, at least a little. This man had no chance. I didn’t mean to kill him. I had no choice. I had to get rid of the shadows.”