by L. T. Kelly
My limbs trembled as I made my way to the drawing room. Ironically, Gabriella’s and Grace’s presence the previous night created far more of a mess than she originally put me down for in the first place.
Three empty wine bottles rested on the coffee table, crimson rings nestled into the wood beneath them. When Thomas lived, he hired human day staff to keep the place clean, but the thought of people rummaging around my home whilst I lay in an unwakeable state above unnerved me, so I let them go.
Who did I have left now? Pearl was shaken and upset by what she saw in Dublin and avoided having to deal with my continued drama. Her lack of contact loomed over me. Not that I blamed her. She went against The Assembly’s advice to help me, and I wouldn’t call upon her emotional support, which would clearly make things awkward if and when Bartholomew returned. Alex blatantly only had Rose’s interests at heart and with that went Ryan’s loyalty. Bartholomew claimed to love me as though he turned me, yet betrayed me on a level I still couldn’t shake from my venomous mind’s eye.
I found the wolves’ shopping bags, peering into them for anything to dull down the emptiness aching inside me, and located the last bottle of wine, not bothering with a clean glass as I poured the dark red liquid from the bottle and drank.
Perhaps there was a person I could contact to provide me clarity. A person I was able to trust. I picked up my cell. It rang out until a woman answered with a foreign tongue, and I asked to be put through to Cleopatra, if available. They wouldn’t have to check first. She would hear me asking and respond with a whisper. The person holding the phone would loyally take her command.
Cleopatra and I remained in touch. We established a fast and lasting bond on the first day we met. Apparently, that was quite impressive. I travelled to see her, cap in hand, and begged for her help to end Ivan Lenin’s war on the werewolf species. Cleopatra had been created by her seer when all around considered her dead. She was the original vampire with her handmaids turned, too, in order to support her through eternity.
Every vampire in existence was attributed to Cleopatra, Charmion or Iras as their maker. I always liked to think I was born of Cleopatra’s lineage because of our bond, but I knew I came from Charmion’s, as Bartholomew had been turned by her, Victoria by him, Thomas by Victoria, then there was me by Thomas.
Her warm, velvet voice flooded my ear. “Are you okay?” She spoke slowly as always, the speed and pitch devoid of concern. I smiled, glad of a friendly voice, which was an epic contrast to the last few days.
“Not the best I’ve ever been.” Possibly the understatement of the century.
“Tell me.” Her beads clicked together in her hair, and I imagined her with the telephone pressed to her ear…a modern piece of equipment strangely located in the ancient building. She loved to lay on the balcony attached to her vast chambers, basking in the moonlight as though it were the sun. I breathed deeply through my nose, recalling the scent of heated sand, still warm from the hot Egyptian sun.
I explained the circumstances between Bartholomew and I. Him leaving, me going in search of him, finding him in my ancestral cousin’s nightclub behind the red curtain with another woman.
“I see,” she responded, though it didn’t sound as though she understood. The line remained silent for a long time. I almost asked if she were still there, despite the click-clack of the beads.
“When it comes to witches, you can’t believe everything you see. Family or not.” She spoke so softly I almost didn’t catch it.
Cleopatra was quite the illusionist herself. The crowd of fighters in New York witnessed what they thought was the last breath of Ivan Lenin. She sentenced him to death and poured absinthe down his throat in front of the audience. He’d only been unconscious.
Ivan had been a werewolf once upon a time and Cleopatra’s lover. There was no such thing as hybrids. You couldn’t be two things at once. Cleopatra lived with guilt because she’d turned him into a vampire. Lenin then wreaked havoc on werewolves, denouncing his birth form in an attempt to win her back. I figured he had the right idea.
“Family? Fuck that. I have no loyalty to those people. We shared a bloodline once, but I’m happy as I am. Well, I was anyway…” I trailed off, thinking about what drove me to call her in the first place.
“Do you know any witches you can trust? I don’t wish to discuss this over the telephone, but it’s a long journey to make for me to show you what you may seek for yourself.”
“I know one, but I’m not sure I can trust her.”
I thought about Freya. How plain-speaking she’d been. Of course, she was under duress at the time, but ultimately, she provided the intelligence, as well as the blood, that assisted us to our destination without delay. I thought about the look in her eyes when she talked about Bartholomew, as though he belonged there with them and not with me. Was it possible the witch’s reverence toward me be born of jealousy? Like the evil step-mother snatching her father away from the family home? I had not considered that previously.
“Alex came here and begged me to allow Rose to explain.”
“Rose?”
Fuck. So wrapped up in my own problems I completely forgot to inform her the amulet was at risk and Rose’s ploy to birth Geo a child. “I’m sorry. I meant to tell you. I take it you’re aware of how Bartholomew came to exist?”
She hummed her reply, so I continued. “The amulet made for him to live as a human… Rose has been trying to locate and steal it so she can mother the wolf’s child.”
“What was the wolf’s involvement?” she drawled, and I imagined Ivan fixated on her and our conversation. I guessed there were some habits that would never die, and Ivan was notorious for being a wolf hunter. His past as a werewolf himself still remained a secret.
“None. He told me himself he didn’t want a child. He’s ageing rapidly.”
“Why would she attempt such a thing then?”
“Because of his age, the visual gap between them. I think he’s becoming despondent. It appears their marriage is falling apart.” My voice lowered, as though someone could be listening. Or maybe just because it was sad.
I was a bridesmaid on their wedding day, and despite the clear unhappiness on the Romano’s part, it was as though the pair were so lost in each other they hardly noticed the presence of the attendees. An ache in the pit of my stomach formed with the clarity I wouldn’t be sharing that unadulterated emotion or memories of happiness from my own special day.
“Teagan, you haven’t told–”
I wouldn’t even allow her to finishing asking if I shared the secret that werewolves were able to become vampires in the same way a human turns. As well as trusting Cleopatra, I needed her to trust me.
“No!” I barked, then softened my voice. “I would never betray your secret to anyone.” I meant it. I never discussed or even hinted at what I learned about Lenin and Cleopatra. That he was alive and living with her at the Egyptian palace.
Her voice muffled slightly as though she talked to someone with her hand over the mouthpiece.
“Charmion is leaving now. She will come to support you and her fledgling.”
The line cut dead. Cleopatra had involved herself enough, so it appeared and sending her handmaiden would be a gift in her eyes.
Charmion always had a soft spot for Bartholomew. He went to her and begged an audience with Cleopatra when the situation with Lenin and the wolves reached a level of danger none of us could handle. Charmion would make it just before sunrise in my estimation. I sighed heavily, glancing around the messy room, summoning images of the rest of the unclean residence, ashamed of myself for how bad I allowed things to become. I downed the glass of wine and set myself to work.
I scratched the surface until it was at least presentable, glad of my preternatural speed assisting me for three solid hours of cleaning. I called Pearl and informed her of the ancient visitor, asking her if she would bring me some decanted blood from The Assembly headquarters. Pearl arrived within the hour.
&nb
sp; “Alex called me earlier,” Pearl informed me, unable to meet my eye. “He told me you wouldn’t grant an audience with him.”
“He’s full of shit,” I said, huffing. “I wouldn’t grant an audience with Rose. She’s back at his house.” My body tensed, and I squeezed my eyes shut.
Rose had always been pleasant, a person everyone exclaimed, “Oh! Isn’t Rose a dream,” “Oh, Rose is such fun to be around.” It made me fucking sick. I recalled smiling at parties and hating Rose beneath my façade many times over.
Alex and I had been friends for many years when I met Rose. Resentment tugged at me since the first party we attended in New York. In truth, I wished someone looked at me in the same way, but they never had, except for Thomas…and that didn’t last forever.
I wondered why my mind continually whirred back to Thomas. I took for granted the wondrous maker and father he was to me. I made fantastic memories with my biological father, but Thomas taught me so very much with aplomb. As a teacher in his human life, he never lost the knack to educate. He pushed without being pushy, and I excelled with his teaching. I couldn’t even read when I met him. My own father, being a labourer, didn’t have much to offer me academically.
Rose was so loveable, it made me dislike her. It was that simple. I was victim to her flaws, though. Her decisions to choose the winning side as it suited. A real fair-weather friend. At this point, I was serving her up with a taste of her own medicine. It didn’t suit me in the least to be friends with her right now, maybe ever, so I wouldn’t.
“Has it struck you she may have important information about Bartholomew? About that dastardly place we frequented?”
It had struck me, but funnily enough, it wasn’t my priority. In fact, I had no clue what my priority was. I invoked the help of Cleopatra, she reacted, but with no idea why. My only interest was myself, healing with the loss of a lover, a potential husband, my happiness and sense of well-being all down the drain.
As the doorbell chimed through my hot ears, I knew I’d made a fatal mistake calling Cleopatra for advice. She hadn’t given me a jot of it. She only sought to fix the problem by sending me another.
Fifteen
Walk Like an Egyptian
“Rose Romano requested an audience with you. She appears to be the perpetrator of this predicament, yet you refused?” Charmion tipped her head as she surveyed Pearl’s and my open-mouthed stares.
She waltzed in through the front door as though she’d been invited verbally by at least one of us.
“You must call them and tell them to attend this residence with immediate effect.” She spoke lazily, her demand coming across like a polite request rather than the order it actually was. She wandered past us toward the staircase. She visited here before as a house guest on several occasions.
Pearl and I exchanged perplexed glances. Charmion was usually soft and warm, so I was glad when Pearl appeared as confused about her strange demeanour as me.
Pearl and I hastily followed her to the drawing room.
“And yes, please. That would be lovely. I’m famished.” Charmion nestled back into Thomas’s chair as Pearl poured the decanted blood into a glass.
“I understand you left Bartholomew with the witches in Dublin?” Charmion raised a perfectly rounded brow in my direction as I took a seat opposite her, shifting uncomfortably. I wasn’t used to sitting there, and I was sure Charmion purposely elected to take my chair as some sort of hierarchical thing to put me in my place. In terms of the pecking order, I was so beneath her my toes were firmly on the earth’s core.
“What choice did I have?” I asked her grittily, both my brows raising in response to the disappointed tone in her voice. My throat swelled at her judgment of my character. She could never gauge how soul-destroying it was when I caught him with that woman. My fists balled in my lap. I would defend myself. I didn’t give a flying fuck if Charmion was considered a goddess or not.
“She’s right, Charmion. It was awfully upsetting for Teagan.” Pearl paused and sighed, looking away from me. “And myself, if I’m being completely honest,” Pearl concluded, handing Charmion her glass.
Charmion snatched a glance at Pearl, offering the same pursed lips and narrowed eyes I’d been subjected to. “How so?”
Pearl clasped her trembling fingertips together. “Well…” She tilted her head to one side. Her lips formed a flat line, and creases fanned out around her eyes. “I didn’t think Teagan’s ongoing suspicion and jealousy were justified.”
Silence lingered heavily as Charmion and I continued to stare at Pearl. I couldn’t believe she stood there defending me to the ancient vampire. If I stood at the earth’s core far beneath Charmion, then Pearl was only a few feet above me.
“I would have sworn he wasn’t carrying on behind her back.” Pearl walked back to the sideboard, making herself busy with another two glasses of blood. Probably to hide her embarrassment.
“What you witnessed was not what you think,” Charmion told us pointedly.
“Are you here to help, or are you here to criticise my choices?” I sat back in the chair, my eyes narrowed on her. I hoped I appeared stronger than my flipping stomach informed me that I felt. Pearl offered me a glass and perched beside me on the couch. Pearl’s body tensed, as though awaiting a bloody attack.
Charmion smiled. “I always admired your tenacity, you know?”
I didn’t, but I suspected it to be the case whenever I caught mild amusement dancing in her eyes as she witnessed me giving as good as I got throughout the years.
“What do you mean? I didn’t see what I thought I saw?” I relaxed a little now we got the power-crazy bitch bit out of the way.
Charmion sighed. “It is difficult to explain. I’m certain your friend, Rose, would be much better placed to tell you.”
“She’s no friend of mine,” I snapped, holding my lips back over my teeth. “She deserves to be killed for causing all this shit.”
Charmion leaned forward, her liquid tones a shimmering whisper in the still air. “Teagan, you speak like a woman who never wanted something she couldn’t have.”
I did plenty of that in the past, but it didn’t get me anywhere. Even the Malapropos had better prospects than me. If I went to live with them in the caves of Ancrum, at least I wouldn’t be alone like I was in London.
“They’re here,” Charmion said, closing her eyes gently and filling her nostrils, as though taking some sort of calming breath. Charmion used to be considered the traveller of the three ancient vampires. Iras hardly uttered a word, let alone anything else, and Cleopatra became a homebird many years ago, too. I guessed Charmion had not been used to too many intense situations, despite her clear role as the problem solver of the three original vampires.
Pearl graciously rose to answer the door for me, most likely getting to it as the chime of the doorbell rang out. I honed in on the voices asking where I was and who else was here. They most likely distinguished a different scent from within the house. Alex strode into the room, Ryan sashayed in behind him, Rose following cautiously. Her hair appeared stringy, darkened with grease, and her eyes moved erratically around the room. Charmion glowered at Rose, as though she were a high court judge and Rose stood awaiting sentence.
All three of them held their breath. I doubted Ryan was even aware of Charmion, but the atmosphere seemed to warn him that whoever the unknown entity was, she ought to be revered.
“I refuse to encroach on Bartholomew’s duties and that of The English Assembly,” Charmion said tersely and nodded to Pearl, who reappeared in the doorway. I squirmed a little, realising I was the only one sitting, aside from Charmion, but considered I may appear awkward if I stood now.
“Tell her.” Charmion nodded at the bedraggled Rose.
Rose’s eyes flew wide as she looked at me, and Alex placed an arm around her shoulder, squeezing her to him as though she were the victim in this. My stomach clenched and jaw ticked. I fought hard to contain the rage bubbling in my throat.
“
I was there when you came into the room at the club. It was your voice that pulled me from the trance.”
I squeezed my brows together. “I didn’t see or hear you.” I narrowed my eyes at her, but she couldn’t focus on me. Rose’s gaze continued to ping around the room, as though someone may be waiting in the wings to drag her away from the protective arm Alex had around her.
“Because I was behind another curtain.” Her voice cracked. “They placed me in some sort of trance, and I was in the room where Bartholomew was being kept.” Her chest heaved. “They had me doing terrible things.” Her hand slapped over her eyes, shoulders sagging, as though talking about what happened resurrected despicable images.
“What kinds of things?” Charmion urged her to continue, despite her obvious distress.
Rose let out a dry sob. Of course, she couldn’t cry, but the three of them standing there smacked of an Oscar-winning performance. I hadn’t yet figured out what the purpose of this shit was. Were they planning to get me to help exonerate Rose’s actions with The Assembly once Bartholomew arrived back? An unintentional puff of laughter escaped my parted lips as the thought passed through my head.
I swallowed hard, all their eyes now on me because it looked as though I was laughing at the supposed trauma Rose suffered. They wanted me to say something? To explain?
“You reap what you sow,” I seethed.
Alex and Ryan shot me hard stares. Yes, it was harsh, but I wished everyone in the room would consider it from my point of view. What Rose did destroyed my life.
“You chose to go after the amulet, Rose. Nobody forced you. It was your choice,” I said in a softer tone. “I have nothing now. I am alone,” I mumbled, hoping to remind all present of my predicament.
Rose removed her hand from her face. “But you haven’t lost anything. I swear, Bartholomew wasn’t in control of himself. The same way as I wasn’t. They stripped me naked and sold me to the highest bidder night after night.” Another moan of anguish rang around the room, until Alex pulled Rose tighter into a hug, her head resting on his chest as he shot me a death stare.
