Betrayer (Hidden Book 7)

by Colleen Vanderlinden

  “You will destroy her, then,” I said quietly.

  “It will be a mercy, for everyone,” Mollis said, glancing toward Quinn. I nodded. Mollis stepped back and drew her sword from its scabbard, the black flames licking hungrily along its blade. She stopped, looked at Quinn. After a few moments, he met her eyes and gave a small nod, and then he turned away, facing the empty doorway, looking out into the deserted street beyond the church doors.

  Go to him, E. This is one of those moments where your team needs to see what you are, Mollis said in my mind.

  I gave her a nod, releasing Mary’s arm and giving her a final look.

  My fault. This was on me. “I am so sorry,” I whispered to her, taking in her face. I would not forget.

  I walked over to Quinn, who was still standing, facing away from us, his arms crossed over his chest, his head down. He glanced up in some surprise as I stood in front of him. We shared a look, and I took a deep breath and put my hands gently over his ears, and he closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against mine.

  We stood there, and moments later, I heard the crackle of Mollis’s sword, the swishing sound it made as it swung through the air.

  A muffled thump of Mary’s head falling to the floor.

  A sob.

  Quinn’s breath hitched, and I saw tears spill from beneath his dark eyelashes.

  “We will avenge her,” I whispered to him. “I promise you.”

  He gave a small nod and opened his eyes, his gaze meeting mine. “Make this right, boss. Don’t let this have been in vain.”

  “I will.”

  It is done. Her body has become dust, Mollis said telepathically.

  I took my hands from Quinn’s ears, then patted his arm gently before walking past him to go back to Mollis. She tilted my head to the side again, inspecting my wounds.

  “You’re going to have a scar from the knife wound,” she finally said.

  “One more for the collection, demon girl. It is not important.”

  “I think you and Brennan made a good call about London. Way more souls from there recently.”

  “Are any of them making it to you?” I asked.

  “Some are. Not enough,” she said. “Nain said Brennan and Artemis are tracking down the immortals?”

  I nodded. “I wanted to know for certain if we are missing any more immortals, and to warn any we find about what is happening. I do not want them to be caught unaware as Winter and Autumn were.”

  “I agree,” she said. “So far, so good?”

  “So far, they have not heard about any missing,” I said. “They are going to Crete next.”

  She stood silently. “I don’t want this to go on much longer. We need our teams united again.”

  “We do,” I agreed. “You should talk to your mother.”

  She gave a small smile. “You sound like Nain.”

  “Your husband is not the dumbest male I have ever met,” I said, and she laughed.

  “Give it time. I’m still seeing what I can learn when they’re around. I really don’t think it’s my mom. Meg, though…” she trailed off, shrugging. “She’s weird lately.”

  “Weird, how?”

  “Irritated, angry. Snappish.”

  “Well, she does not have the world’s most pleasant personality to begin with,” I said, and she grinned.

  “True. But even more so than usual. The other day, she was gone all day, no word she was leaving, nothing. And then when she got back, she said she needed some time away. Tell me that doesn’t raise a few questions. She wouldn’t tell me any more than that.”

  I did not answer.

  “Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Mollis said with a small smile. “We’ll figure it out. Just promise me you’ll be by my side when I have to punish whoever betrayed me.”

  I smiled. “You know I will be.”

  She nodded, and then I took a step back and motioned for my team to join me. As they did, I gave Mollis a final nod and took us all back to London.

  We had more hunting ahead of us, it seemed.

  Chapter Eight

  I rematerialized all of us back to London’s East End. I had no desire to spend any more time near St. George’s, and we ended up in the Spitalfields district. We had hunting to do, but I knew that now was not the time. My New Guardians had just been through something that had all of them, myself included, shaken. Seeing Mary that way, witnessing her end… no, there would be no hunting until we had time to talk. If there were grievances to be aired against me, I would rather it happen now than when I needed them to trust me.

  And there rightly should have been grievances. Mary’s capture, her forced transition to undeath, was my fault. There was no other way to see it.

  I also had things to explain about my Queen, I thought with a sigh as my team looked around. I had made us appear near what was in this time, a brewery. When I had been in this place in Eveline’s day, there had been more tall row houses where the brewery now stood. The tower of Christ Church rose high in the sky above us, just as it had back then, though now it was illuminated by floodlights from below. I would have rematerialized us in a more central location, or back to Whitechapel, but the pubs would be busy at this time of night, and I was too tired and heartsick to try to focus on not surprising any of the humans with our appearance. I still wore my blood, my coat crackling with it.

  I turned away from the sight of the church tower looming over us, finally facing my team.

  “Clearly, I am not fighting with my Queen,” I said softly. They all watched me, and I tried to push away the overwhelming fear that one of them would betray me.

  Betrayal. Oh, how the recent years of my existence had taught me to fear that very thing. It was not something I thought much about before the day I realized my sisters had worked with Hermes against Hades and his daughter. Now, it seemed that that word slithered its way through my existence and worries almost constantly.

  “But pretty much everyone seems to think you are,” Cathleen said. I sat, leaning back against the brick wall of the brewery, and my team sat with me. We formed a loose circle, Cathleen and Quinn on either side of me. Cathleen and Erin still held hands, as if they needed the comfort. Claire had her arms crossed over her body as if trying to keep herself warm. Quinn sat, stoic and silent for once, and I found myself wishing he would crack one of his ill-timed jokes.

  I explained. I explained to my team about the betrayer in Mollis’s realm, about the need to find them out before they did more damage. I explained what we were doing, and how we both hated it.

  “You should have known all of this,” I finished quietly. “That is another thing, perhaps, that I should be apologizing for this night. My only excuse is that I have come to see those around me in terms of who is most likely to betray us next, and I was too cowardly to trust you.”

  “And now you do?” Erin asked.

  I gave a wry smile. “Now, I do not have much of a choice. I could not have taken all of them to Mollis myself.”

  Erin and Cathleen each let out a short laugh. Claire shook her head.

  “Considering how insane everything has become, it surprises me that you are willing to talk to anyone,” Claire said with a smile. “You name yourself a coward. I do nae see that,” she finished with a smile. “And our relationship is still new. You do not know us, not really,” she paused, then smiled again. “Though it does strike me that you likely know me better than anyone knew me during my living years.”

  Erin and Cathleen nodded at this, and Quinn remained silent. I knew that of all of them, he had been affected most by what had happened with Mary.

  “Still. You all vowed to help me. I should have been brave enough to be honest with you. Part of it was the fear that if you knew of it, others would be able to learn of our deception from you. Not through any malice on your part,” I said quickly, aware that Erin was about to argue. She closed her mouth, and I continued. “Those we suspect are powerful telepaths. I need to keep you away from them, at the very l
east.”

  They all nodded, even Quinn.

  “Can we hunt, boss?” Quinn asked quietly. “I feel like I need to do something. I can’t just sit here right now.”

  I met his eyes for a moment, then nodded. He stood, held his hand out, and pulled me up after him.

  “Some of Eveline’s murders occurred in this area as well,” I said, looking around us and trying to remember. “It is possible she would return here.”

  “A little walk down memory lane,” Erin muttered, and I nodded.

  “She always was a vain creature,” I said. We walked out of the parking lot of the brewery, and started making a circuit of the immediate area, walking the twisting streets that formed the boundary of that particular little cluster of narrow streets and alleys, and then progressively making our circuits smaller, drawing us, eventually, to the area immediately surrounding the dealership. We were a block behind where we had begun, the church tower looming up even more prominent over us.

  I felt something, and spun around. An energy signature.

  A female soul was walking toward us. She was not the one I had been hunting, and she was not on any list I had. Her dress marked her as someone from a time long past, and her curly brown hair was in some manner of disarray. She stopped walking when she saw me.

  By now, my New Guardians saw her as well, and stood around me, throwing questioning glances my way.

  I had not known this soul upon her appearance, but as we stood there studying one another, details filtered into my conscience. I recognized this for what it was: she was another soul overlooked by both the crows and my kind, a soul that the God or Goddess of Death knew nothing about.

  Another potential New Guardian.

  And one that had, in her time, fallen victim to Jack the Ripper, or, as we knew her, Eveline Noonan.

  Her name had been Annie Chapman.

  She stood, staring, and I let her. My team were all studying her closely.

  “You can see me?” she asked quietly, surprise in her tone, a bit of a tremble to an otherwise rich voice.

  “I can.”

  “You are one of them though. The dark angels who take the dead.”

  I watched her closely. “We are called Guardians. We are not angels. We are hunters for the God of Death, Annie Chapman.”

  She looked at me with some surprise. “Are you finally here to collect me? I have been passed over for years.”

  It hurt, the pain in those final words.

  I slowly walked toward her, and though she tensed, she allowed me to take her hands in mine. “I do not doubt that it looks that way. The others of my kind, as well as the crows that do our job now, could not see you.”

  “Why not? Is this some kind of purgatory for the kind of life I lived?”

  “No. Never that. You were meant for something more,” I said quietly, keeping my eyes on hers. Her eyes were a lovely shade of green, with hints of gold.

  “Something more?” she asked with a snort.

  “I can see you. That means that you are meant for more than an eternity of aimless wandering. It means that you are meant for more, even, than your final judgment and punishment by My Lady, the Queen of the Dead.” She still had that look of disbelief on her face, and it did not surprise me. This woman had lived a difficult human life, as a prostitute in the East End, and then had been tormented and murdered by Eveline.

  “Those standing behind me,” I said to her, nodding toward my New Guardians. “The others of my kind passed them over as well. They now work with me, hunting the souls of the dead, and sometimes, even more dangerous things. If you were left behind, it was because you still have a role to play here.”

  She tore her gaze away from my New Guardians, and looked at me again.

  “We are here hunting she who murdered you and so many others,” I said softly, and she looked at me in shock.

  “She’s here?” she asked fearfully, pulling her hands out of mine.

  “She escaped, with the help of someone who tries to undermine my Queen. We are here to take her and bring her back.” I paused. “You have not seen her, have you?”

  Annie shook her head, looking as if she might fall over from the shock. “I hide. There is a cellar over there that no one ever goes in, and I feel safe there. I only came out because I felt… something,” she said, looking confused.

  “You felt something different from the souls of other dead you have seen,” I said, and she nodded.

  “Yes. That was you?”

  I nodded.

  “Wait. You were killed by Jack the Ripper?” Claire asked, and the rest of my team approached. Annie nodded uncertainly.

  “Annie Chapman, please meet Quinn Connoly, Erin Finnegan, Cathleen Boyle, and Claire Magee. I am Eunomia.” Each of my team nodded in turn as I introduced them, and there were handshakes and quiet greetings.

  “They help you hunt the dead?” Annie asked, and we all nodded.

  “Would you like to help?”

  She looked uncertain. “I am not really a fighter.” She let out a low laugh. “Though I wish, all these years later, that I had been.”

  I smiled.

  “I was not a fighter, either,” Claire said with a smile. “Eunomia has taught us so much. More than anything else, though, it’s beautiful not to be invisible anymore.”

  At this a look of such longing crossed Annie’s face that I felt the urge to hug her. I did not, of course, but I wanted to.

  “I started hiding in the cellar because the solitude was easier without people and dark angels walking past all the time. Not being seen…” she trailed off with a shake of her head.

  “I can see you. They can see you,” I said, nodding toward my team.

  She gave a timid smile. “I still can’t believe it,” she said.

  “Well,” Quinn said with one of his disarming smiles. “If you plan on joinin’ up, let’s hear it: we all tell our death stories. And since we’re hunting the monster who killed you, I’m even more interested in hearing yours.”

  She shook her head and sat on the curb. I sat beside her, Quinn on my other side, and the rest of my team on his other side.

  She took a deep breath. “The view from this spot hasn’t changed overmuch,” she began. “I looked up at that damned church tower as I died.” She paused. “There used to be a house here,” she said, nodding toward where the parking area for the brewery began. “I was walking down Hanbury after finishing work,” she said.

  “What kind of work?” Erin asked, and I hid a grimace.

  “The work a woman does on her back,” Annie explained in a bland tone.

  “Oh. Oh!” Erin said, and Quinn met my glance, gave a small roll of his eyes.

  “I was walking back toward the rooming house I hoped to rent a bed in with the wages I’d earned. It was summer, and I could have well slept outdoors, but I had already done that recently enough and I wanted some escape from the stench.”

  I nodded. I remembered the malodorous air in Whitechapel during the times I had come to collect the souls in this area, that month during which I had originally hunted for Eveline’s soul. The thick, oppressive odor of unwashed bodies, horse manure, and human waste was only made worse by the summer heat. Too many people crowded into too small of a space, and no means by which to move on. It had smelled of desperation and decay, back then. I had come there often, even before “Jack the Ripper” commanded so much of the world’s attention. Humans had died here from fights, abuse, starvation, infection… I had collected them all.

  I tore my mind away from the memories, and focused once again on Annie, who had continued speaking.

  “I remember that the yard of the house was surrounded by a low brick wall. There was a gate at one end, the led to the alleyway behind,” she said, lost now in memory. None of us interrupted, knowing by now how much it meant to finally tell the story of how one met his or her end. “I walked, and trailed my fingers over the brick. Ahead of me, a woman stepped out of the alley. She was dressed plainly, nothing much
out of the ordinary. But she was beautiful,” she said. “I remember envying her her youth and beauty, and thinking she was one of the lucky ones. When I made to walk past her, she stopped me, and asked if I might like a drink. I said no, not wanting anything from this woman who clearly had everything I did not,” she said.

  There were a few moments of silence. “And when she didn’t convince me with a drink, she mentioned that her brother was looking for someone with my skills,” she said quietly. “And I was tired, but the prospect of a bit more to get by on, maybe the ability to buy a pint to dull everything for a while,” she shrugged. “It was too good to pass up. So I let her lead me into the alley, though the gate, and into the yard. We neared the back door. She was behind me, and we had been chatting about the heat. All of a sudden, she grabbed my hair. I didn’t realize what was happening until I felt the blade slicing my throat open.”

  We were all silent. Annie’s hands were shaking, and I reached over and gently took one in my hand. She gave me a grateful look, one that spoke to how little kindness this woman must have received during her existence.

  “She sliced my throat, and then she sliced it again, just above the first cut,” she continued. “I just remember feeling like I was drowning. I couldn’t get any air, and I struggled. I remember putting my hands to my throat,” she said, putting the hand that was not clasped with mine to her throat in memory. “I don’t know if I thought I could stop the bleeding, but all I could think was that I had to keep pressure on it,” she said, shaking her head.

  “I fell down, and I was vaguely aware of her stripping my skirt back, cutting my bloomers off.” She closed her eyes. “I thought it couldn’t get any worse. I knew I would die there. And then she knelt next to me, and she plunged her knife into my abdomen. I could feel everything. Every slice, and I gurgled and tried to move away, but my body had already given up. I died looking up at that cursed church tower, and I didn’t bother praying, because I knew for damn sure that no one was coming to save me.”

  We sat in silence for several long moments, Erin’s sniffles the only sound in the night. I held Annie’s hand in mine, and Quinn had seemed to edge himself closer to me, as if offering me… what, I did not know. Support? Warmth? I sorely needed it. It was not so much her story. After all of this time, I was well aware of the horrors of death. It was her tone. That hopelessness, the loneliness.