The Awakening (3 page)

"It was the right thing to do, Nye," Zac
said quietly. "She was a true vampire. Her humanity was lost."

"I know," he said, stepping back from the
bars. "Afterwards, I dumped her body at the bottom of the Thames and
disappeared. It wasn't long after that I was recruited by Regulus and
believe me mate, I needed direction and the fucker gave it to me."

"I'm not judging you, Nye. We do what we need
to to survive."

"I've never had a direction that wasn't
someone else's," he said with a frown. "If we get through this, I
don't know what to do."

"One day at a time," Zac said, slapping
the spy on the shoulder. "One day at a time."

Casting a look back at the cell, Nye walked away,
continuing down the passage. They hadn't gone far when Zac clamped a hand on
his friend's shoulder, stopping him mid-stride. Pressing a finger to his lips,
he nodded in the direction that they had been headed. Through the darkness that
had turned into murky moonlight from high-set windows, they heard movement.

"The executioner's rooms," Nye
whispered. He eased open the door and before he could call out, he was
pulled inside. Zac ran after him and saw it was Pyke in full vampire
mode. The vampire pushed the spy back against the wall, fangs bared, and
when he realized who he was holding, his eyes settled back into their ordinary
brown hue.

"Calm down, mate," Nye exclaimed, holding
his hands up.

"Nye?" Pyke dropped him abruptly,
standing back a few paces.

"What a warm welcome," he replied,
cracking his neck.

Pyke glanced at Zac and his eyes darkened.
"And
you
."

"Yeah, and me," Zac sighed.

Pyke sat back down on the makeshift bed along the
far wall, running hand over his face. He looked strung out and his usual
scruffy demeanor was all over the shop. "I assume you want something."

"I'm sorry I had to deceive you," Zac
said. "But, I had to so I could end Regulus."

Pyke snorted. "Aye, I get it, but you didn't
have to put me through a windshield in the middle of nowhere."

"Would you believe me if I said I was sorry
for that, too?"

"No."

Zac let out a laugh. "If you were in the same
position, you would've done the same thing."

Pyke narrowed his eyes before shrugging.
"Aye."

"What are you doing here, Pyke?" Nye
asked. "You could've gone anywhere."

"I had nowhere else to go," he replied.
"I didn't expect to be turfed out on my own."

"When I had nowhere else to go, I went
home," Zac said, thinking of the manor back in Louisiana. "You never
forget your first home, even in death."

Pyke looked up at him with a raised eyebrow.
"You're different."

"I suppose so."

"I gather you've taken what was Regulus'. It
doesn't mean that I will swear fealty to you automatically."

"I've taken nothing, Pyke. I don't want
it."

The vampire sighed sharply, standing to face Zac.
"Then why are you here? Why are you bothering me?"

"The Coven have awakened something
terrible."

"And why should I give a stuff?"

"You know the Hunter is a hybrid with a
creature of power," Zac began.

"Yeah, so what?"

"There's one of two people it could be. The Original
Witch, who was driven insane by the blood of a star…or a hybrid vampire
belonging to a dead race of creatures like the Hunter. The difference being
that they are an original hybrid. Created, not turned."

Pyke's eyes widened. He got it. Aya was a force to
be reckoned with and it had taken her hundreds of years to learn control and
even now it was tentative. This hybrid would never be able to grasp even a
semblance of that notion. The witch would be just as dangerous, but at least
Aya might have a chance at stopping her. The hybrid…not so much.

Coraline had mentioned to him before she'd left to
go to Ireland with Maximus that it could be a Tuatha. A fae from the old
stories of Ireland. That was one for the too hard basket.

"We need your help.
Your
help. Together
we have a chance. Alone we have none at all." Zac stared him down,
refusing to back away.

"And what are you doing down here
anyway?" Nye asked. "Wasting away to a shadow. Living in a life long
gone. You want a purpose? He's giving you one."

"Will you come with us?" Zac asked.

Pyke looked like he was going to cave, but shook
his head. "No. Not right now." Nye gave him a look that said
not
likely
. "I'll meet you at the apartment soon enough. That's all I
can give you right now."

"We could really do with your help," Zac
said. "If a day or two is what you need, then we will wait."

"Zac…" Nye started, but he held up a hand
to stop him.

"He's coming." He glanced at Pyke.

"Aye," the vampire said. "I will
come. One last battle for old times sake."

Zac offered him a thin smile. "Then we will
see you at the apartment." Before Nye could say any more, he grabbed the
spy's arm and they left Pyke to his misery. For this to work, the Three had to
come willingly. Forcing the matter wouldn't do any good, it'd just piss
everyone off. Trying to fight a common enemy with bickering and infighting
would get everyone killed. No, they had to do this together or not at all.

"That was easier than I thought it'd be,"
Nye said as they made their way back through the dungeon.

"Pyke is the kind of man who needs a cause.
The moral compass doesn't really matter."

"Rix may go along with it," the spy
sighed. "Maddox, not so much. You might need to beat it out of him."

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to
it." Zac knew all too well that Maddox was a troublemaker. He was the one
who tried to lead the others against him after he'd freed Coraline in that car
accident. If it weren't for Nye's intervention, their plan would've been shot.
He was counting on Nye's presence to be the thing that turned the tide with the
assassin. But, he wouldn't worry about that until the time came.

When they finally returned to the surface, the
stink of torture and rot behind them, Zac's cell pinged with a text message
from Gabby.

It was one word, but the worst one she could've
sent.

Hybrid.

CHAPTER FOUR

Aya peered out of the window at the grey London
sky, misery settling into every part of her body. She'd been alone for most of
her afterlife and was content with it, being who she was, but now that so many
of her friends knew…being alone wasn't high on her priority list anymore.
Truthfully, she pined for Zac and he'd only left the day before.

She never thought she could love again and it had
taken her almost two thousand years to figure it out. She loved Zac with
everything she had, but it still wasn't enough to stop him from leaving.

There was a knock at the door, interrupting her
spiraling thoughts. Looking over her shoulder, Tristan walked into the room, a
frown creasing his brow. His curly hair looked wilder than ever and sometimes
she forgot how much he'd been through because of her over the years. It had
been a long time since they'd met during the Crusades...a thousand years long.
Her only true regret was that he had to suffer his change into vampire on his
own. She wished she had of been there to stop it from happening in the first
place.

"Arrow," he said, coming to stand by her.
"We need to do something. We can't stay here forever."

"It's been a day." A day since she'd lost
control and ripped the Coven apart…a day since she'd almost taken Zac along
with them.

"I know, but what if you didn't stop the spell
like Coraline said? Shouldn't we prepare or somethin'?"

Aya let his thick Irish accent wash over her. Her
heart ached over many things and he seemed to be a calm place in the chaos of
the past few months. She knew what she needed to do, but after so long, what if
she didn't like what she would find? Now, more than ever, was a time she needed
to be strong. The Romans were gone, Katrin had been banished and she was free.
She was no longer hunted, but there were still many things left undone.

"I have to go home," she sighed, looking
back out the window.

"Home?"

"My birthplace."

Tristan knew that she hadn't been back there since
she found the mutilated remains of her family. The day she found them, she left
to exact revenge on the founders, the
Romans
, and never looked back. No
longer a true Celestine, she felt like that place was lost to her. Now that her
enemy were all dead and gone, she had to go and make her peace.

"You don't have to come," she said.
"I can go alone."

"Of course I'm comin' with you," Tristan
scoffed.

"Zac won't..." she began.

"He will understand,
leannan
." He
used an old Irish word for love. "After all, he let you go this
time."

He let me go. He let me go because he didn't feel
worthy.

"Fine. But, you cannot come all the way."

"Vampires aren't allowed?"

She shook her head, wrapping her arms around
herself.

"Nye left his car here, so we can go whenever
you want. Just say the word."

"I suppose now is a good a time as any."

"Well, I'll get our things and check us
out."

Nodding, she turned back to the window once more,
gazing at the bleak weather outside. What would be waiting for her when she
finally set foot in the field of white flowers again? The white flowers that
were the only thing that could kill her forever. Luckily for her, they only
grew in her forest and she was the only one left alive who knew where it was. A
witch could enter with the right intent, but if no one knew it was there…Aya
now had the freedom to choose her own death and for the first time in her life,
she didn't want it any time soon.

Finally, she looked away and began gathering her
few items of clothing, stuffing them in the small bag Tristan had given
her. The room had been trashed when the Coven kidnapped her comatose body,
which was another story entirely. Tristan had done most of the damage trying to
stop them, but what was a few pieces of furniture when insane witches were on
the loose? He'd obviously kept himself busy the last day cleaning up the mess.
She looked around the hotel room one last time and with a sigh, she opened the
door and left it all behind. That chapter was over and another one was
beginning.

She waited downstairs as Tristan checked them out
and spoke to the valet. She had no patience for those human nuances. Humans had
grown more and more suspicious of one another and the hoops they had to jump
through to do anything was baffling. Privacy was a thing of the past.

"Where are we going to?" Tristan asked as
they waited.

"Grasmere."

"Oh, in the Lake District?"

"Yes, I suppose that's what it's called
now."

"It's about a five hour drive," the knight
said as they got into the sleek looking car that appeared before them.
"We'll be there just after dark."

"We have time," Aya replied, fastening
her seatbelt as he pulled out into traffic. "I gather someone will let us
know if we're needed."

As the city gave way to countryside, she was
content to let it go by in silence until Tristan's cell phone beeped in his
pocket.

"It's from Zac," he said, peering at the
screen, one eye on the road. Not exactly responsible driving.

Her heart began to beat double time.
"And?"

"You didn't stop the spell."

"And who did it awaken? The witch?"

"No, it's a hybrid."

"A hybrid?"

Tristan looked at his cell like he wasn't believing
Zac's message.

"What else is there?" she asked.

"He says it's a Tuatha. That can't be right, can
it? The fae from the old Irish stories?"

Aya's blood began to run colder than it already
was. She knew the stories, the true ones, and it didn't bode well at all. Aoife
had married Lir for an alliance, a chance at peace, but she'd screwed it up the
moment she plotted against her husband. She'd made a human witch with her own
blood and that had been her first mistake. Taking Lir's children and turning
them into the first vampires in history was her second. Aoife had tried to fix
what she'd done, but now it was coming back to haunt her ancestors.

An original Tuatha hybrid made by an unstable witch
was bad news. Insanity bred insanity.

"Yes," she sighed. "The one and the
same."

"You don't sound so enthusiastic."

"They're bad news, Tristan," she said,
glancing at him. "Our kinds were at war at one time. They're not the
pretty fairies from your stories."

"War?"

"It was only three generations before I was
born. The Tuatha were a race that came, conquered and destroyed.
Everything the Celestines were against. We fought them to the brink of
extinction."

"That's why there were so few of you left by
the time you were born?"

"Yes. The whole reason the Original Witch came
into play was because of Aoife. She was sent to marry the Tuatha's king, Lir,
as a way to secure peace between our dying races. Now we know she had other
plans."

"She made the witch so she could create
hybrids?"

"And those hybrids were Lir's children."

"The Children of Lir were turned into swans in
the stories," Tristan said. "But, they were really changed
into….founding vampires."

"The children of Lir were a casualty of
war," Aya said. "Their fate seems regrettable. Trying to destroy the
Tautha royal family was folly on Aoife's part. Creating hybrids locked in
eternal damnation and servitude to the enemy seems like a good idea, but her
mistake was in using her own blood to make the witch that needed to cast the
spell."

"Why couldn't Aofie cast it?"

"Celestine magic can't be used like that. It's
used for nurturing, manipulating the earth...not creating monsters."

"Unstable blood made them and now one is
awake."

"Yes, and whichever of Lir's children it is,
they will be mentally unstable."

"What do we do?" Tristan asked quietly.

"We keep going on to Grasmere. I may need to make
peace with that part of my life, but there may also be something there about
the Tuatha that could help."

They drove in silence for a while, villages and
towns passing them by. Rain turned to sleet and the sky cleared before greying
again the further north they travelled.

"How long does a Celestine live for
anyway?" Tristan asked like he'd been thinking about it for a
while.

"I was very young when I was changed,"
Aya sighed. "A life span would sometimes stretch to a thousand years for
the strongest."

"How long would you have lived if you hadn't
of been turned?"

"It's hard to say. I was strong, I'm not
modest in saying that. I would have been one of the oldest. Still, I've gone on
for twice as long as nature intended."

"Through no fault of your own."

"No." For a split second she considered
telling him about the white flowers, but decided against it. She had tried to
tell Zac, but he'd stopped her. The secret was best left to her and her alone.
After all, she had plenty of experience keeping them. Instead she said,
"If there is one thing this long life has taught me, is that it's no use
dwelling on what can't be changed. We can only keep going forward."

"And our next order of business is to find a
way to stop this Tuatha hybrid."

"You know I can't ask you to help, Tristan.
There's no telling what will happen next and I cannot protect you."

The knight laughed out loud and she glared at him.
"When will you learn, Arrow, that I'm with you till the end. Certain death
or not?"

"A thousand years can addle your brain."

"And two thousand?" he asked with a wink.

"Don't even start," Aya replied and
smiled her first genuine smile in days.

Tristan pulled the car into a spot behind the only
pub in the main street of Grasmere. There were about five houses and a few
little tourist shops with glowing lights in the windows. Christmas displays
twinkled warmly through the misty rain and the afternoon light that was fading
fast. He looked across at Aya, who was staring out into the night.

"You can wait until morning," he said. "It'll
be dark soon."

"It's not far."

"Do you want me to come with you into the
forest?"

"No, it's raining out here."

He didn't know how he should answer that, so he
replied with, "I'll wait in the pub until you return."

"I might be a while. Time acts differently
there."

Nodding, he said, "I'll still be at the pub.
They seem to have rooms there. Or I'll just wait in the car. I won't be
far."

Without another word, she opened the door and
slipped out into the dull winter air and disappeared across the street into the
woods. He knew better than to worry about Arrow. She had taken care of him when
he was at his worst and every time he tried to repay the debt, he never came
close to doing anything that mirrored her efforts. When she said she would be
okay, she would really be okay.

Getting out the car, he opened the side door into
the pub and waved his foot through the threshold. When he found he was able to
enter, he walked into the warm light and ordered a beer from the elderly man
behind the bar. Finding a spot in the corner, he settled in for the long haul.

There were about half a dozen people spread across
the homely looking room, some drinking with friends, others enjoying meals by
the open fireplace. If it weren't for their current predicament, he would have
enjoyed himself.

Something was weighing on his shoulders and for the
life of him, he couldn't figure out what. It felt like someone was looking over
his shoulder, waiting. Glancing around the pub, he saw nothing out of the ordinary.
He was certain everyone here was human. As his thoughts turned to Arrow, the
outside door opened and a man walked in. Tristan's eye instantly fixed on the
stranger, who looked out of place in an expensive looking suit,
sans-tie. The weight that that been pressing on him since he'd sat down
began to constrict heavily against his lungs and he knew something was wrong.