The Last Keeper

by Michelle Birbeck

  Helen gasped, leaning into Sam for support, her hand coming up to her throat. “They have William.”

  “How do they know?” Ray whispered.

  “Laura. It must have been,” I said. “Ray, I have a house up north. I’m sending you up there whilst I go and make sure William is safe. When your mother returns this evening, tell her everything. I don’t think it would be safe to leave her here.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “If they know who you are, she’s not safe.”

  There was nothing more I could say. I couldn’t guarantee anyone’s safety as long as we were in London. Hell, it was likely that I couldn’t guarantee it no matter where we were. The best option was for us all to disappear. People could make whatever assumptions they wanted after we were gone.

  Leaving Helen to explain to Ray what would happen, I returned to my room. David was awake, talking quietly with Jayne. I smiled sadly. There wasn’t time to stop and chat with them, not when William’s life was so precariously balanced.

  “Stay here until your mother comes,” I told Jayne.

  In mere seconds I was changed, wearing the same clothes I’d worn just a day before. My hair was plaited down my back, ready for running. Apart from crossing the channel, I planned on going on foot. I was quicker than any horse, and time was so very precious.

  My next stop was my study. Reaching for the key I’d shown Ray so recently, I unlocked the steel cupboard. One knife went into each boot, another on my belt. One of the tiny arrowheads was tied to the bottom of my plait, and two more were placed in my gloves. They sat perfectly between my fingers, turning a normal punch into a deadly one.

  “You’re going, then?” Helen asked, standing in the doorway.

  “What choice do I have? I won’t stand by and let them slaughter him. His eldest son is still with him. I have to go.”

  “Be careful, Serenity.”

  “I always am, but this is William’s life. Please, be out of the city by nightfall.”

  There was little time for a proper goodbye with Ray. He stood awkwardly by the sitting room door.

  “Come back soon,” Ray whispered, wrapping his free arm around my waist.

  “I will,” I promised. “I’m so sorry.”

  “This isn’t your fault, Serenity. If we need to move, then we shall move.” It was now that his acceptance of the life I led would be tested to the fullest.

  I kissed him one last time before racing out of the door once more. If Elena had William, then what she could do to him was irrelevant. What she could do to Alison . . .

  Getting out of the city on foot, dressed as I was, proved to be far simpler than I’d expected. I headed straight for the Thames. My boat would be waiting for me, as it always was. The boat journey was the most tedious part; agonisingly slow. It gave my mind time to wander and let me dwell on the fears I’d been holding back.

  Fear for William’s life.

  Fear for the lives of his family.

  Fear of being the last of my kind.

  Fear for my own life.

  But above all else, there was one fear that outweighed all of them combined: fear for Ray’s life.

  They knew who he was. Although they’d only mentioned his first name, there was no telling how much they knew about him.

  It was possible this whole thing had been orchestrated as a trap. The Seats could very well be moving against Ray. It was why I’d insisted on him being out of the city by nightfall. It didn’t matter if we lost everything in there. The entrance to the basement was hidden, so the books would be safe until I could get to them. Ray was what mattered most..

  As soon as I was off the boat, I started running, fast as I was able. There would be bloodshed, and I could only hope the blood wasn’t from someone I loved.

  It was almost dark by the time I approached the border between France and Switzerland. Though there was little time to waste, I checked the surrounding area. Ten miles in all directions. Living on the outskirts of the village, as William did, provided privacy, but it also provided the perfect setting for an attack.

  There would be no witnesses.

  Elena was waiting when I eased through the open front door of William’s home.

  “Serenity Cardea. How nice of you to join us.” Elena’s voice caused a snarl to tear through me. “Now, now, there is no need for such hostility.”

  I didn’t have time for games. Springing forward, I caught Elena by the throat and slammed her into the wall. In the same instant I went for one of the knives, pressing it into her skin.

  “What have you done to them?”

  “Who said I did anything to anyone?” She laughed, the action causing the blade to draw blood. Not enough to kill her. Shame.

  I heard Alison’s laboured breathing and William’s grunts of pain. I didn’t need Elena to tell me what she’d done. That much was all too clear. But, I couldn’t hear William’s eldest son.

  “Do not toy with me, Elena.”

  “Oh, but I am not toying with you. Do you really think drawing my blood will alter the course of the things we have set in motion?” There was amusement in her eyes as she taunted me, forcing the blade deeper into her neck.

  Letting her drop to the floor, I raced in the direction of the sporadic cries of pain. I knew this house as well as my own. It was one of the stipulations of knowing where each other was.

  “Oh God,” I muttered when I found William and Alison. “William? How much did they give her?”

  The laboured breathing. The tossing and turning. The inexplicable pain William was in. It all pointed to one thing. Alison was going through the change, and there was very little that could stop it.

  “Too much,” William grunted between breaths.

  “No. Please, no. William, I need you to fight for me,” I begged. “Please.”

  “Not this time, Sere.” His breaths were coming quicker now, each a pained gasp counting down the seconds he had left to live.

  Alison was too weak to survive being turned. Her body was already struggling so much with their unborn child. It was too much for her. Too much for William to bear. Too much to take in. So I did the only thing I could. I begged over and over again for something, anything to save them.

  As Alison’s overworked heart came to a stuttering stop, I waited in silence, my breath held.

  One beat.

  A second.

  Silence.

  A third beat.

  Then absolutely nothing.

  William let out his last breath, and all fell still in the house. As the quiet dragged on, the breath I’d been holding came out in a rush. As it passed my lips, it turned into an inhuman cry, full of pain, suffering, and anger.

  Unbridled anger.

  “How sweet.” Elena’s voice hardly registered in my mind.

  All I felt was the agony that came with losing one of my own and the burden that now lay with me alone.

  “So, when is the wedding?”

  That did it.

  I turned away from the rapidly cooling bodies of the last of my family and pinned her to the wall once more.

  “You will never lay a finger on him.”

  “I think we will. There is no one to fight with you, Serenity. You are all that is left. You can’t win.”

  “If you think I’ll give up, then you’re sadly mistaken. As long as I’m alive, I will stand against you. Even if it means killing every last one of you.”

  “When you become Mrs. Willis, we will find you, and then we will kill you. That, I promise you.”

  And there it was. The piece of the puzzle that had been missing for so long. Absolute, unwavering proof of our betrayal.

  “Thank you.” I smiled, letting her go.

  “Why would you thank me?”

  “You just gave me the proof I need to stop this,” I informed her, knowing there was nothing she could do about it.

  “How do you know I did not torture your brother for the information?”

  “Because William knew only hi
s first name, and his surname is not Willis,” I said, still smiling. “Leave, Elena, and give your brethren a message. My race doesn’t end with me. I’ll find a way. That, I promise you.” I didn’t have time to mess with her. There was too much I needed to do, and I had to get back to England.

  “We will find him.” Her promise meant little, but I felt the need to make myself clear.

  “Over my dead body. And we both know that’s not going to happen.”

  It was fortunate for her she decided to leave then. Had she stayed any longer I might have been tempted to kill her. It tore me apart to listen to her retreating footsteps. She’d murdered the last of my brothers, and in the most brutal way possible. It wasn’t something I was inclined to let her live for. But live she would, at least for now. I needed The Seats reasonably stable, and killing Elena would compromise that.

  Also, she’d given me that final piece of the puzzle.

  I knew.

  After all these years, I finally knew where it had begun.

  It was rather fitting that William and I were the last. The first twin and the last of us ever to mature. William had been convinced we would both play a role in the revival of our race, that there was meaning in who we were and the path our lives would lead.

  He was not a seer.

  And whatever significance he would’ve played had died with him.

  The sun was rising when I dragged myself from the floor to go in search of William’s eldest son. His room was the first place I checked, and I found him there, neck snapped. He must have been sleeping when Elena arrived. At least he didn’t feel any pain.

  David had his own room, and I stopped there briefly, gathering some of the things he would need. It was a good thing William had a large carriage. He had refused to upgrade to a car, believing it was a phase the human race would soon grow tired of. A car would’ve been far too small to fit everything in.

  William held the smaller portion of the records, though it was sizable enough. The entrance was in a similar place to mine and hidden in a similar way. It was easy to find.

  Clearing it out would take time, but it needed to be done.

  We never did discuss what would happen when we were both gone.

  It was a simple task of picking up the boxes that were in William’s basement and loading them onto the waiting carriage. There’d never been any point in him unpacking them as the books he kept needed no updating. They were neatly stacked into three large trunks that I strapped to the top of the carriage. The rest were in smaller boxes that I crammed into every available space I found.

  There would be no second trips to gather anything else. It would already take too long passing through occupied France, and would take more influencing humans than I cared for.

  The last book I retrieved was William’s family tree. One of two copies. We’d agreed it was too dangerous to send any notifications to me, even though our postal system passed mail through the hands of several families before arriving. Personal letters were different, and rarely contained information that would identify us for what we were. So he kept a copy, and I had a second. It would need updating. A final entry for his family.

  That could wait.

  The sun was setting for a second time before I was ready to leave. The burning house created a warm glow on my back as I rode away. There would be no trace left of William or his family by the time anyone got to the house. They would assume they all had died in a tragic accident.

  It would take me days to get back to my home. There was little point in stopping overnight, and William’s horses had been trained as my Tara had been. Still, I was reluctant to push him to the limits when he was pulling a fully laden carriage.

  Plus, there was a stop I needed to make.

  Now that I knew who was giving the vampires their information, I had to stop it. They would take no more lives, and they would never find Ray.

  Dawn was breaking by the time I reached Lyon, bringing with it a red glow of promise. It was the colour of blood on the horizon, the colour of the anger that was running through me, and the colour of the blood that had been spilled.

  Just after breakfast, I arrived in front of Laura’s house. I was still numb from watching William die, but my anger was slowly rising as I sat staring at the building.

  “Serenity!” Laura called when she opened the door. “I didn’t expect to see you again . . . so . . . soon. What happened?”

  What happened? She had the audacity to ask me that as I sat in front of her house with William’s records strapped to his carriage while he was nowhere in sight.

  “I want a word with you,” I snarled, hopping down from the carriage. “And you better pray you have some good answers.”

  “I-Is everything . . . all right?” she stuttered, backing up into the house.

  Stepping inside and slamming the door behind me, I growled at Annie and her partner. “Go to your room, now.”

  “Aunt Sere?”

  “Shut up,” I hissed, “and leave. I need a word with your mother.”

  “Serenity, w-what is . . . ?”

  “Why did you do it?” I demanded when we were alone.

  “Do what?”

  “Do not lie to me!” I shouted. “William is dead! They murdered him.”

  She closed her eyes and whispered, “I’m sorry.”

  “No. You do not get to say you are sorry. Why?” My fist came down on the dining room table as I circled it. The feeble wood cracked under the pressure. “He’s dead because of your family.”

  “My family is your family, too, Serenity.”

  “Not anymore.”

  “W-what a-are you g-going to d-do?” She stepped back until she was up against the wall.

  “I’m going to do something I clearly should’ve done a long time ago.” It was a promise I was more than willing to break, especially after what had happened. “Your family will know nothing of us. You will know nothing of what lives in the world around you. First, you will tell me why.”

  “Y-you cannot do that!” Laura cried.

  “There are things you cannot know about us until you mature. Now you will tell me why you did it, or I will get the information myself.” I was quickly losing my patience.

  Cowering against the wall, Laura paused for far longer than my liking. “My family knew that if they killed Lona that way it would stop us from maturing,” she whispered, hanging her head.

  I stared at her, frozen in shock for a moment. “What?”

  “She didn’t want it—your life, maturing. She wanted a normal life, so she told the vampires what they needed to do. It was in one of the books your sister held,” Laura explained, every part of her shaking with fear.

  “Where is it?” I demanded. If the book still existed, it could save us.

  “It was destroyed. Burned.”

  Frustrated, I took a step towards her and cried, “Why carry on? Why tell them everything, let them hunt us down and slaughter us? Do you have any idea how many of us have lived in fear because of what you’ve done?”

  “They paid us,” she whispered. “Promised us we would be safe.”

  “And you believed them! They murdered my sister! They murdered William! Do you have any idea what the pain is like when someone turns? It consumes them, killing every part of them! I had to watch as my sister felt the pain of a change that wasn’t even happening to her!” I was screaming as Laura stood cringing away. “I just watched as William’s nine-year-old son was carried unconscious into my home. We found him clutching a note from The Seats. They’d already snapped his brother’s neck whilst he slept. At least you had better pray it was done whilst he was sleeping. When I got there they’d already started turning William’s pregnant wife.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Not good enough.” My voice was laced with hatred and anger. “Who do you think is going to stop them once I’m gone? No one will be able to.”

  “I’m so sorry,” she tried again.

  “How can you be sorry? Do you
know what you’ve done? Can you even comprehend what the world will be like when I’m gone? When there’s no one stopping them? Sorry isn’t good enough.”

  Though I repeated over and over again in my head that I’d be as bad as the vampires if I took her life, I was still tempted. Instead of killing her, I stepped out onto the porch. I needed to be away from her so I could concentrate. If I was going to wipe her memory of our race, concentration was a must. Looking at her while I was doing so would only make my anger return. I was barely under control as it was.

  Entering the minds of our own was something I’d never done. Taking their memories was something we were told never to do. Ever.

  When I finished, Laura wouldn't be able to pass on stories of our kind to her children, and she wouldn't have any knowledge of who we were. Annie and her partner would remember nothing. Their lives were now to be lived as if they were human, never knowing that something was missing.

  If the time came when we started to mature again, if I managed to reverse what had happened, I would consider seeking them out. Until then, they were no longer part of our race.

  When I went into Laura’s mind, I was shocked. Everything was there. I hadn’t smelled any vampires around her house because there were none. Laura’s family had been part of our postal system; a complex arrangement that passed details through the hands of several different families before they came to me. Every time she received a letter regarding partnerships, clearly recognisable by the insignia we’d used for centuries, she’d simply looked inside and passed the information on. She’d been posting them information for years. Communicating via a third party who knew only of the vampires. That was a loose end I’d need to take care of at some point.

  It took time to sift through the minds of three people, taking only certain memories, pulling them out like loose threads on a knitted jumper. Each one was connected to something else; pull too much and the whole mind would unravel, leaving nothing behind. It was a delicate job, easing the various memories from their minds one at a time, but it gave me time to see what they’d done and how they’d planned to continue. The Seats knew everything about me—my name and the fact that Ray was my partner. It was only a matter of time before they tracked me down. I’d need to disappear. She’d done her job well. There would never have been a trace of what she was doing if I hadn’t given her the wrong name when she asked about Ray. I couldn’t see what Laura’s mother had done, but everything else was there. They had their own stories that had been passed down. Stories of their betrayal and how it had been “for the good of everyone.”