Chapter 8

MAEVE

Ethan standsoutside the study door, and an unwarranted spike of fear at the sight of the massive guy runs through as he nods at me.

"How"s it going, Ash?" he asks in his rough brogue.

"Better." Ash clamps his lips together.

What?

Ethan rubs a hand across his mouth. "Fair warning, Maeve. Dorian left the vamp in the sun until he agreed to talk, but then the guy wouldn"t tell us enough so Dorian uh... switched tactics."

"I understand," I reply.

But I"m not prepared. The vampire"s unrecognisable; I can"t figure out where the burns stop, and the bruised skin begins. His hemia features add more horror to the situation. The broken face would be gruesome on a human, but he"s a thing of nightmares, huddled in the corner of the room, knees drawn to his naked, livid red chest.

Andrei. All I can see is Andrei if he"d walked outside that day. The vamp regards me, his irises milky blue, the colour sucked out of him. Then he darts a look behind me. He barely has a face for me to read, but his mind"s awash with splintered images, some blackened as if scorched like his body, and I clench my teeth. Nothing. Not even a mind to control.

"Come out," says Ethan beside me. "Maeve."

He pulls at my hand, and I frown at him. "I"ll see more of and worse than this." I don"t finish the sentence: when we confront Gabriella; kill her followers.

Eloise rubs her nose as she walks in and glances at Ethan. "Anything?"

"No. And I haven"t touched him."

Shaking her head, the tall woman moves to stand over the maimed... thing. Eloise exudes a calm deadliness she shares with Dorian, her attractive features as deceptive as her partner"s.

"Do you want Dorian to come back and ask you more?" she says, as if asking a guest what they require. He returns a hard look from his half-dead eyes. "You do know I"m a necromancer?" The thing nods. "Unfortunately, I reanimate people in the bodily state they die in. I imagine you"d find that unpleasant, especially if Dorian decides to remove a limb next."

I swallow hard. Maybe I don"t want to witness this.

"My heart," he manages to rasp out.

"Oh, he"d leave that alone, otherwise I can"t work my magic." She smiles sweetly.

I"ve always seen Eloise as the softer of the hybrids, level-headed and with compassion and never ruthless, but this woman has Dorian"s blood, too.

Which begs the question what"s the child they created like?

"Now, would you like to tell us where Gabriella is and what you were doing at the docks in London?"

"That"s obvious. Gabriella"s leaving via boat," says Ethan gruffly.

"Surprised she never chose Whitby," Ash says.

"Why? What do you know about the place?" asks Ethan. "Has Gabriella visited?"

Ash chuckles.

"He means the book the humans base their hemia myth on," says Eloise, not looking around. "Their story about one of the originals. He arrived in England at Whitby."

"Dracula existed?" I ask. Ethan"s laugh comes too loudly as my worlds collide again. "Are you serious?"

"You haven"t read the book, have you?" Eloise looks over her shoulder. "The story"s based on a real hemia vamp. His surname might interest you."

"She hasn"t read Dracula," says Ash. "I hinted once, Maeve."

Okay. This gets more surreal, and I"m hit with one of those times that the world around feels like a parallel universe. I"m one step further than when I have a vision, because the sick disorientation comes from knowing I"m not in a horrible dream.

I"m speaking to real vampires about mythical ones.

"Tepes," Dorian says from behind me. I spin around to give him a mouthful about his teasing. "That wasn"t a joke, Maeve. And it"s why I reckon Andrei will survive."

Usually, Dorian regards me the same way as he does everybody else—occasional mild interest but mostly disinterest unless we mention one of his obsessions. Now, he"s looking at me with something bordering on sympathy. He steps backwards from the room and inclines his head.

I hesitate before following and bet that the almost-dead vamp in the corner hopes Dorian stopped his questioning.

"Yeah. So. Andrei isn"t good." Dorian pushes hair from his face as we stand away from the doorway.

"Wow. You"re perceptive, Dorian."

"Really, Maeve? I"m trying to be nice." He jerks his chin. "Andrei will live, I"m sure. He"s linked to two original families—Tepes and Petrescu."

"You think?" I breathe out, shoulders slackening. "Could you feel that from him?"

"Well, he isn"t dead yet. Four days?" I nod. An eternity. "I told Andrei that I plan to kill Gabriella unless he gets his act together and reaches her first. I bet that"ll help rouse him."

"And all the times I"ve told Andrei I love him and need him back won"t help?"

"Yeah, that too." He rubs his cheek. "The First knows he"ll survive. She"s screwing with you. Perfect distraction, huh? Because I think I know where the First went."

"To find Gabriella?"

"To check on the original originals."

"How could you possibly know this, Dorian?"

He taps the side of his head. "I know almost everything."

"Of course you do," I mutter sarcastically.

"In case you hadn"t noticed, I"ve superior intelligence, and I have spent years researching the people I intend to remove from the world. That involves knowing everything, and I never, ever forget a fact or a myth. One myth claims there"re four originals that the First keeps somewhere."

"Why? Where?"

"The First never wrote either of those things down," he says. "Although… if the creature"s headed away to kill them, hopefully all the hemia vamps don"t die too." He chuckles at my shock. "Just part of the myth. Could be wrong."

"And you didn"t tell us this already, why?" I say through clenched teeth.

A sparkling smile. "Maeve. I never, ever give away all my knowledge."

"For fuck"s sake!" I half-shout and both his brows rise. "Anything else I need to know about this damn world that threatens me?"

"This myth doesn"t threaten you. You"re not a vampire. Tobias isn"t full hemia. Andrei"s protected by the First"s "gift". Me, Eloise, and Mia aren"t full hemia either." He shrugs. "Makes no odds to all of us."

But the vamps I knew at the academy who already survived one attack. They"re people, not just abstract myths in books or movies.

"Hey, if the First kills these originals before we meet Gabriella, and hemia die, that saves a job, although one I very much want."

"Is that why the First delayed us?" I straighten. "Until it"s strong enough to... do whatever to these vampires."

He points at me. "See, you"re pretty smart too."

"But what if the creature does the opposite?" My voice rises. "Unleashes them."

"Hmm. I guess we"ll see."

I choke out my shock. ""See"?" He shrugs. Bloody shrugs. "I can"t deal with this, Dorian."

"Fair enough. I"ll go deal with Gabriella"s buddy. We can find where she is and get on with actually doing shit."

"Not until Andrei comes back."

"Sorry, Maeve, but I"m done waiting now. Andrei won"t die if I kill Gabriella. As soon as I find her, she"s dead."

Naturally, he walks away before I can respond. I"m too sick and shaky to deal with anything in that room and make my way to the kitchen instead. I"ll find water. Take a walk.

"Oh, hello, Mia," I say when the first thing I encounter in the room is the girl"s dark hair as she stands by the table facing away from me.

Until I clearly see Mia. The child turns. She holds a small, black-handled kitchen knife in one hand, her other palm bleeding. If that isn"t enough to make my already queasy stomach want to push out the contents, she"s drawn runes on the kitchen table.

In her blood.

A small sparrow lies in the centre of the table, unmoving.

Mia doesn"t speak and looks at me as impassively as Dorian does, through matching glacial blue eyes. Immediately, I back out of the room and stare at the door as I close it.

What. The. Fuck?

"What did the arsehole say to you this time?" asks Ash as he heads along the hallway from the makeshift interrogation room.

"The child," I say hoarsely and point at the kitchen. "Omigod, Ash. Blood."

"Huh? Is she hurt?" Ash pushes open the door and halts as I did. "Ethan!" he yells. The mid"s figure appears in the study doorway and he looks between us. "You might want to keep an eye on Mia," says Ash lightly and inclines his head.

"Fuck!" Ethan"s in the kitchen in a heartbeat, snatching the knife from the protesting girl"s hand. "Dorian! I need your help!" he shouts.

"I"m busy," Dorian calls back, their exchange echoing around the house.

"The fuck you are," mutters Ethan, then shouts. "Now, Dorian! Problem with Mia!"

A perturbed Dorian appears from the study, Eloise close behind, and I try to ignore the amount of blood on his hands. I step back and watch as Dorian walks into the kitchen and then sighs at the screeching girl, who"s holding the bird against her chest so Ethan can"t take it.

The dead bird.

"Oh, sweetest girl. We"ve talked about this. Dead things must stay dead, okay?" Dorian takes Mia"s hand and frowns at the cut before licking his fingers and curling them around her palm. "You need to take the bird back to where you found it. Perhaps we could bury him?"

Eloise pushes past me. "Where"s Zeke? Isn"t he supposed to be watching her?" She unpeels Mia"s other fingers from around the bird"s corpse. "Where did you find the bird, sweetie?"

They keep using that word. Sweet. Not my definition.

Mia jabs a finger toward the garden and bares her teeth.

Ash nods at the bloodied knife. "That child"s violent. I bet the bird wasn"t dead when she found it," he mutters.

"Of course it was," snaps Eloise as if that were the biggest issue here. "Mia is an animal lover."

Now I"m positive I"m in a surreal parallel world.

"Loves them a little too much," says Dorian with a chuckle.

"I"m going to find Zeke," growls Ethan, and I stumble as he shoves past.

Eloise. Necromancer. "Was Mia trying to bring the bird back to life?" I whisper and Eloise"s tightening lips reply for me.

"I want the little bird to feel better," Mia says with teeth-gritted determination.

Feel better?The thing is dead. But I give a small smile rather than inflame the child or the situation.

"Uh. Leave them to their family problem," says Ash, and guides me away by the elbow.

"Don"t worry, we"ll make sure Mia cleans up her mess," calls Dorian, as if Mia found a pen and scrawled on the table, or poured a drink on the floor.

"I hope they take that child back to their island soon," I say. "She"s terrifying."

I stumble again as a swearing Zeke walks by with Ethan and then quietly closes the kitchen door behind him. Eloise"s voice inside the room is not quiet.

"If Gabriella and Oskar die, Dorian wants to step into their shoes." Tobias now joins us, and his comment isn"t as shocking as the blood spattered across his neck and chest. "The hybrids refuse to exile themselves again."

"Dorian in charge?" Ash scoffs.

"Why are you covered in blood, Tobias?" I ask, everything else around me fading.

"The vamp told us what we needed to know." He turns stiffly to Ash. "I"ll clean myself up, then we all need to talk."

Tobias. Blood-covered. "You killed him. You didn"t need to."

"Probably a mercy killing," says Dorian as he sidles through the kitchen door, escaping the chaos his spawn created. "I was about to finish the job before Ethan called me to deal with Mia"s latest little mishap."

"Mishap? Omigod," I say. "I don"t know what"s real anymore. Either I"m in a sick TV sit-com created by my even sicker mind or... or..."

Or everything"s real. And the world might end.