by Elle Jasper
I glance outside to check on our progress, and we are much closer to the city. Tall dark spires and ancient stone architecture poke through the mist, and the formidable Edinburgh Castle looms above Old Town in its gloomy, ominous splendor. I’d Googled the city to familiarize myself with it, and I admit: it’s pretty freaking cool. Even knowing evil resides here and what we face in taking that evil down doesn’t deter me from wanting to check it all out for myself. Scottish history seems interesting and this place is loaded with it. So says Jake.
Peter exits the M8, and in minutes we’re weaving through the narrow streets of Edinburgh. I stare at the old architecture, the people. It all looks so normal, like any medieval-born European city that I’ve seen in books. Everything’s made of dark, aged stone, and it’s easy to imagine horses, carts, and people from times past wandering the streets and throwing buckets of pee out of the windows. If I didn’t know evil lurked in the shadows, I’d never guess it was here.
But it is here. Dormant for now, but just below the surface. And they’re waiting for us. The Black Fallen. And after that short dream, I feel they know me. I’d better watch my ass good.
Peter takes a turn that I’m pretty sure sets the Rover on two wheels, and my hand tightens against the strap once more. From the front seat Jake chuckles. My eyes follow the cars coming toward us as we drive on the opposite side of the road, the city’s notorious black cabs littering the cobbled streets and zooming past us. My brain won’t accept it yet. It’s just weird to be on the other side of the road. Yet I have this insane desire to give it a try and take a drive myself. Maybe later. After we’ve taken care of business.
Merchant storefronts line the street, most with their own quirky, painted signs hanging above the entranceways. A bakery. Yes! My stomach growls at the thought of what lies in the display cases. And there’s a chip shop—battered, fried fish and fried potato deliciousness. A corner market swings into view. As we pass by storefront after storefront, I wonder if any of them are the place Jake mentioned: a restaurant with take-out ice cream. Vittoria’s. It’s on my list of places to find first.
Jake has informed us that Gabriel, another WUP member and an immortal Pict like Darius, will meet us and introduce us to Old and New Town Edinburgh. Gabriel is WUP’s Edinburgh contact and has been here since before the organization was even formed. He knows the streets, backward and forward. I hope I don’t get lost. Savannah is easy. It’s not a big city at all and is easily navigable via the town squares. I’m thinking this will be a little tougher. I’m ready, though. I like a challenge.
Peter turns onto a one-way cobbled drive and squeezes the Rover under a stone arch with an aged plate sign that says OLD TOLBOOTH WYND. I want to close my eyes, the Rover is so close to the sides of the archway. Instead, I glance behind us at the other WUP vehicles.
“Tight fit, aye?” Old Peter says with a cackling laugh.
I meet his twinkling gaze in the rearview mirror. “You barely squeaked by,” I answer.
Peter and Jake both chuckle. Eli shakes his head and grins at me.
Once through the arch, the cobbled path opens up to a small, ancient, bricked courtyard flanked by a weathered wrought-iron double gate, which stands open. Through the gates the path winds around a stone fountain. I check out my immediate surroundings. Behind the fountain is an old, narrow, crescent-shaped stone building, three stories high and flagged with windows. Several steps rise to the red double doors.
“This used to be a school,” Jake says, turning halfway in his seat to face me. His accent is odd. Not thick and modern, like Peter’s, but older. “Gabriel has owned it for a verra long while. Since it closed, anyway.” He turns back in his seat. “Now ’tis WUP’s active Scotland headquarters.”
Peter stops the Rover and puts it in park, and I release the door and get out. A light mist falls, and the wind cuts through the courtyard, sharp and brisk, and stings my cheeks. I don’t get cold much anymore, but this weather sinks straight to the bone. Shoving my hands deep into the pockets of my ankle-length black trench, which does at least keep my clothes dry, I study the fountain as I pass. It strikes me. I can’t help but stop and stare. In the center is a derelict angel, wings hanging limply behind him, his hands raised and cupped over his mouth as if shouting something at the top of his lungs. Water spurts from his hands and washes over him into the fountain’s pond. For some reason the statue chills me. Overhead, ravens screech, and as I glance up a swarm of black moves from one side of the crescent to the other as the birds fly in a flock. I notice the only sound I hear besides the water falling over the angel are the ravens’ wings beating against the wind. They sound like harsh whispers. Freaky weird.
Then I sense it. My eyes dart all around me. Searching. Seeking.
“You can feel it, aye?” Jake asks close to me.
I meet his alarming green eyes. “Evil,” I say. It’s so heavy. It feels like a wet, hot blanket draped over my body. While the city doesn’t look it, there’s definitely a feeling of it in the air.
“Pure evil, through and through,” he says.
Our gazes lock, and there’s an immediate understanding between us.
“Lucky for us, though,” he says, “we’re in the window.”
The sound of car doors slamming silences my next question (What window?) and draws my attention back to my immediate surroundings. I turn to watch the other WUP members climb out of their vehicles. Darius is closest, and he walks toward me with long, purposeful strides. He’s tall and muscular, with dark auburn hair pulled back at the nape of his neck. Beneath the dark shades lies a pair of disturbing, ancient amber eyes. He stops a foot away. “Riley,” he says, giving me a slight nod. “Ready to begin?”
There’s an air surrounding Darius that reeks of, I don’t know. . . . mystical madness. “I hope I can help.”
A smile splits his face, revealing a dimple in his right cheek and straight white teeth. An amazing transformation, that smile. Truly handsome. Breathtakingly so. “You will.”
Eli is suddenly beside me. I’m pretty tall for a woman, but Eli towers over me. He’s just a big guy. He doesn’t touch me. He simply stands. Protectively. Something we’re still working on, I can assure you. Eli has been a little overprotective in the past, and for some of it, I’m eternally grateful. But he knows I like to handle myself. “Darius,” Eli acknowledges. I resist jabbing my elbow into his gut.
Darius nods. “Dupré.”
Just then the double-hung, red-painted doors in the center of the Crescent swing open, and out steps Gabriel, along with Sydney Maspeth. Sydney starts down the steps first, making her way toward me. “Riley. Eli,” she says, smiling, and grabs my hands. “So glad you came. I was worried you’d change your mind.”
“Not a chance,” I answer. Sydney is shorter than me, petite, blond, and tough as nails. Yet she moves with a particular grace that gives away her once-genteel lifestyle. In another life, she was a grade school teacher from the Carolinas. Then Sydney shed her Steel Magnolias persona and now she fights monsters. Other than her sick ability to read a dead language, she has no outstanding gifts of strength. But she’s been trained by Gabriel and can fight like a banshee. She’s still graceful as ever. And she’s immortal. I guess that has pluses and minuses. Even dressed in black cargo pants, boots, and a heavy black turtleneck sweater, with her hair pulled into a ready-for-ass-kicking ponytail, Sydney moves as though she’s floating, feet barely touching the ground. Even her hand motions are elegant. She might as well have on a tutu.
“I see you survived Peter’s driving,” Sydney remarks.
“Barely,” I answer. “He’s worse than, well, me.”
Sydney laughs, and Gabriel is there beside her. “Ms. Poe,” he nods, then meets Eli’s gaze. “Dupré.” He extends a hand.
Eli takes it firmly and shakes. “Gabriel.”
Gabriel, like Darius, has no family name. He is Eli’s height and just as solid. He has long, straight black hair that he keeps pulled behind his neck in a silver clip.
His eyes are a weird mercury color that can stop you in your tracks. I’m not kidding—literally freeze you where you stand. His face is cut and strong. Basically, he’s pretty damn sexy.
His stare is almost as profound as Eli’s.
I’m punched in the arm. Without even turning around I know it’s Noah.
He leans down to me. “Can you feel it?” he asks. Noah has sunkissed brown dreads, and pulls them back in a thick, untamed tail. Crazy silver eyes—much like Gabriel’s—stare down at me.
“Hell, yeah, I can feel it,” I answer, and I know he’s referring to the same ominous evil blanketing the city that I had detected earlier.
“Let’s all go inside,” Jake says, nodding toward the red doors. “We can get better acquainted with each other,” he says, his eyes aimed directly on me, “and with what’s out there.” With a quick glance to the sky, he jogs up the steps. I wonder what he’s thinking. With Jake, you never know.
We all give one another an inquisitive look, then grab our bags from the trunks and move toward the Crescent building that will, for now, be our new home base. WUP headquarters.
The silver blades in my duffel bag, along with the very special potions concocted by Preacher and Estelle, my surrogate root doctor grandparents, rest as heavily on my shoulder as the solid weight of death I feel hanging in the air around me.
* * *
Inside the Crescent it’s old, dark, and chilly despite the fire snapping in the fireplace. The air smells of charred wood and musty earth. Dim yellow light spills from several tarnished sconces embedded in the stone walls. They cast a hazy luminescence onto the wood-plank floors, and I notice my shadow stretches peculiarly when I move. Like my arms and legs are twice as long and my head distorted. Weird.
The foyer is empty. A row of old iron hooks, no higher than hip level, lines one wall of the entryway. Coat hooks, probably for the children who once went to school here. I don’t know. Something kinda creepy about that.
“You may settle your belongings wherever you wish on the second floor,” Gabriel says, his eyes sweeping over all of us. “There are several chambers to choose from. The third floor is primarily for training. We’ll meet in the library for briefing in fifteen minutes,” he says, then nods at Jake. “Andorra?”
They both exit the room.
Sydney steps forward. Her long blond ponytail brushes the middle of her back, and her dark clothes nearly merge with the shadows. “All right, guys. This way,” she says, taking the lead up the wide wooden steps.
Eli’s hand rests on my lower back as we follow Sydney. His big body, although not warm, is comforting against mine. Noah, Darius, Victorian, Ginger, and Lucian follow behind us. The wood creaks and groans beneath our feet as we climb to the second floor. Sydney stops just a few feet past the landing. “These apartments were for the teachers of the Crescent School for Unruly Children,” she says, wiggling her arched blond brows. “Two shared bathrooms: one for boys; one for girls,” she says, pointing to the middle of the long corridor. “And a large linen closet at the end.” She points in that direction, too. “Okay, I’ll leave you to it. Meet you in the library in fifteen.” Sydney disappears down the steps and recedes into the darkness.
“You two,” Noah says, looking at me and Eli. “For the sake of all of us, take the room at the very end.”
I grin and shoulder my way past him. “No arguments there.” Noah shakes his head as I pass.
With Eli’s hand still at my back, we walk the long hallway to the last apartment. The corridor is dark, like the rest of the Crescent, and a long strip of faded green carpet stretches straight down the middle. The walls are of stained wood, so dark they appear black. Several old photographs in oval frames grace the wall in a straight line. Stone-faced women, their hair pulled back severely in tight buns, and men just as stony stare back. No smiles. All business. I swear, it looks like they’re straight out of a horror movie.
Ginger and Lucian take the first apartment at the opposite end of the corridor from us. Vic is across the hall from them, Noah is one door down. Darius is next to us.
I drop my duffel on the floor and take quick stock of our room. It’s—surprise, surprise—dark. I move through the low light filtering in through the window to flip on a lamp perched on an old desk in the corner. The room is cast in a muted blond haze and illuminates a fireplace; a queen-sized bed, complete with heavy green curtains; a nightstand on either side of the bed, each with a lamp; and a tall armoire in the corner. A wooden chest is situated at the foot of the bed. I walk to the window and look out. It’s gray and bleak, and my attention is drawn to the distraught angel in the center of the fountain. I stare at his face, chiseled in stone and chipped with age. His eyes are squeezed tightly shut as he cups his hands to his mouth.
Suddenly his features blur, becoming distorted, and I blink. When my eyes focus on his face, he’s staring directly at me. A shot of adrenaline ripples through me.
“Ready?” Eli says, his lips brushing my neck.
I blink again, and the angel’s face returns to its original stony state.
What the hell?
“Ri?” Eli says, then turns me around and stares down at me. “What’s wrong?” Instant concern flares in his cerulean eyes. The muscles in his jaw flinch. Like I said, he can be overprotective.
I smile. “Nothing. Just getting used to this creepy place I guess.” Not a lie. “Let’s go before Jake gets his knickers in a wad.”
Eli stares a few seconds more, weighing what I say and determining if he believes me or not. He probably doesn’t, and with good reason. I’m not sure I believe myself at this point. “All right, Poe. Let’s go.”
A familiar feeling fills my insides as we leave the room and step back into the shadows of the corridor. It’s a feeling that’s becoming too much a part of my everyday life. I guess I have to just get used to it.
Dread.
Part Two
THE TEAM
I believe a man lost in the mazes of his own mind may imagine that he’s anything.
—Dr. Lloyd, The Wolf Man, 1941
Already, this place is eating at me. The moment I stepped out into the air, evil seeped through the seemingly innocent stone and mist of Edinburgh. I don’t know exactly what we face, but I know it’s going to make killing vampires in Savannah look like playing with Barbie dolls. The Black Fallen? They’re bad. Really, really bad.
—Riley Poe
Unlike the bleak entryway and second-floor apartments, Gabriel’s library is nothing short of stylish. A massive room with wall-to-wall mahogany shelves lined with volumes and volumes of books. A colossal fireplace that takes up nearly a whole wall. And in front of the crackling fire, a long, dark leather sofa, love seat, and several chairs. A chandelier made of intertwined stag antlers dangles overhead. Several table and floor lamps with Victorian-era shades of claret, green, and cream add to the soft glow from the fireplace. As we all file in, I notice Jake and Gabriel near the hearth, their dark heads together, deep in conversation. Simultaneously they both glance up and step forward.
“Sit,” Jake says, nodding to the seating before the fireplace.
We all do. Noah plops down on the sofa beside me, and on my other side, Eli. Darius takes a chair; Victorian takes another. Ginger and Lucian take the love seat. Sydney is already positioned in the overstuffed leather chair closest to the hearth. I take notice of my companions. It still floors me to know what really, truly exists in our world. I call them otherbeings, for lack of a better term. And they are beings, with feelings. Tempers. Attitudes. But they’re also vampires. Werewolves. Immortals. And then there’s me—whatever the hell I am. I guess I fall into a weird, in-between category. Not sure yet if I like that or not, but there’s no changing it. It is what it is.
“As you all know, we’re here to deal with the Black Fallen,” Jake says. My eyes cut to Eli. We’re both thinking the same thing: this guy doesn’t waste time. Jake crosses his arms over his chest and his eyes sweep over us with a hard gaze. “
The Black Fallen are angels engulfed in the darkest of magic. They’re obsessed, powerful, and completely undetectable. They’ve zero conscience. They move among humans as one of them, and only another fallen one can recognize them straight away. They’re from an ancient realm of holy and unholy, if you believe in that sort of thing. And they’ll not stop until they have what they desire.”
“Swell,” Noah says, rubbing his hands together. “I love a challenge.”
I turn my head to look at him. He returns my stare. “What?” he says. “I do.”
“Well, you may change your mind soon enough, Miles,” continues Jake. “No matter how powerful you are, there’s always something out there more powerful than you.” He looks directly at Eli. “For a vampire, it’s the Black Fallen.”
“Why are they here?” Ginger asks.
“And what do they want?” Lucian adds.
“Darius will brief you on their history,” Jake asks. “He’s more knowledgeable about the matter.”
Darius takes up the story. “Centuries ago, my brethren and I were forced to destroy another sect of druids called the Celtae. They’d stolen an ancient tome of magic called the Seiagh, filled with the most potent and powerful of evil spells. Dangerous not only to themselves, but to mankind. It poisoned their minds, and they had begun using it for their own personal gain. For money. Riches. Sex. Power. Only later did we realize they had stolen it from the Black Fallen. The Seiagh’s power was legend. It needed to be destroyed.” He takes a breath in. “Little did we know that the Celtae had hidden it so elaborately that even we wouldn’t be able to find it. The bloody thing is masked with magic. ’Tis been nearly an impossible task to find it. Until now.”
