“Innokentiy, wait!” Tristan called out.
The Viking stopped to wiggle a finger at him. “The one called Innokentiy is dead.”
Before Tristan could call out again, Netty was gone. He swallowed back his words and sighed, slumping. After watching the emergency crew assess the big hole in the road for a moment, he turned to Ash. “My hand is fucking killing me.” His chest too. Damn, it felt good to be alive.
She smiled and went to him, hands resting lightly against his chest and pushed up on tip-toe to give him a kiss. “Come then, let us see to it.”
“Ugh,” Tristan scoffed and motioned with a nod. “Dude could have taken that with him.”
Ash frowned at the body on the ground, the empty shell of the monster she loved as much as she hated.
“Mamoru,” Tristan whispered and went to knee next to his lost friend. “I realize I didn’t even know him, but somehow, I really miss him. He was a really good guy. I think he could have helped me too.”
Ash put a hand on Tristan’s shoulder.
He shook his head, refusing to look up. “I fail everyone, don’t I? Those people buried alive, Mamoru, you… All I’ve got to show for all this is a broken hand, an almost death and a pile of bodies.”
“Now, that is just not true.” She lowered to crouch next to him, mindful of the emergency crew encroaching into their space. They needed to leave soon. “You saved lives.” She nodded towards the building where the last of the people that’d been buried alive were being taken away. “Three people are alive because you chose to save them.”
“I should have saved them all.” He frowned down at Mamoru. “I should have kept that freak from taking you in the first place.”
“I survived Genoveva in the past and I am stronger for it. If not for the spell she forced on me, then I might—no, I know I would have bested her. I am no longer the woman held captive by empty promises and the blind naivety that everyone is inherently good.”
Tristan turned his head towards her, his cheek just brushing her shoulder. “You are inherently good.”
She smiled despite her haunting belief that she was wrath. “As are you, my love.” Ash gave him a gentle kiss, lingering to deepen it. But Tristan pulled away first, his attention going back to Mamoru as he placed a hand on the man’s unmoving chest. Ash flicked her gaze up towards the crowd. If they didn’t leave soon they’d have trouble.
“Do you think,” she asked gently, “if I hand him to you, that you can carry him?”
He nodded silently.
Ash gave him a kiss on the cheek and stood, guiding him to his feet too. He moved in a daze, taking his dead friend into his arms when Ash handed him over. He was going numb, his thoughts shutting down to white noise.
“If we hurry,” Ash groaned as she lifted the larger vampire’s body, tossing it over her shoulder in a fireman’s carry before bending back down for the head. “We can catch a ride back with Desmond. It will be faster than the boat.”
Tristan only nodded and followed his vampire lover through the streets of Crete with the casualties of his life a weight on his shoulders.
24: Sparta
THE crisp wind coming off the ocean tugged at her hair until it was wiping around in her face. She gathered all of the dark length in a hand at the back of her neck, holding it tight as she looked up to meet the deep blue eyes of the man with the Cheshire smile.
“I still don’t understand any of it,” Chrysanthe said, shaking her head and shielding her eyes with her free hand from the setting sun. Too bad the gems on his staff were just as blinding they caught rays of light and unnaturally refracted and multiplied them. From the way her companion stared at the staff, she could tell that Silas was just dying inside, burning with a jealous rage over the artifact.
“I told you before,” the old man said. “The why is none of your concern, child.” He tucked his cane under one arm and pushed an old fashioned medicine bag of impeccable quality at Chrysanthe. Inside were spells that the young pythia had never even dreamed of before. She was inexperienced enough that he was sure she’d kill herself with one by accident sooner rather than later. That suited him just fine. She and her elf companion were only allowed to live as a courtesy. “You did well.”
When the young pythia only blinked blankly up at him, he motioned at her in a manner that told her to move along. “This concludes our business, Chrysanthe.” He nodded at the elf. “Silas.”
Silas’s jaw tightened, but he made no motion to move from his spot. Chrysanthe mindlessly took the bag from her employer, her gaze lost in his eyes. He smiled that warm smile that charmed the pants off women and men alike. The perfect white teeth, deep blue eyes and a strong, stubbled jaw gave him an everyman look. Everyone wanted to engage him, he just had one of those faces.
White hair shining, flesh aglow, and a tall, lean physique with that accessible smile, it was no wonder he was mistaken for kindly… or human. No one would have looked at the aging man and suspected what he really was.
“Oh dear,” Chrysanthe said, fidgeting with the bag strap when she realized she’d been staring. “I’m really not so comfortable with all this. I mean, I just don’t understand—” She bit her lip. “That man, the Japanese chap… I never wanted anyone to die.” She leaned forward, lowering her voice. “A man died because of me.”
The old man looked at her a moment and then laughed that creamy warm laugh that made hearts flutter. “And you saved a life too, didn’t you?” he said mockingly, knowing full well that Tristan almost died. He was still angry about that. It was lucky for them that he was reasonable and didn’t just kill them out of spite. “Besides, you didn’t actually kill Mamoru now, did you?”
Chrysanthe flinched back, her eyes wanting so desperately to look at Silas but finding it hard to. “N—no.”
“That’s right.” The man stepped around her and right up to Silas. They were nearly eye-to-chin. He fixed Silas’s listless fuchsia eyes with his own, so full of mirthful cunning. “Silas here handled the dirty work, as I knew he would. He’s an elf, so it meant nothing to him to kill. Especially not a fire-using Uruwashi. Isn’t that right, elf?”
Silas’s chin lifted ever so slightly, eyes full of anger. “That man was my friend.”
The old man gave him a sarcastic look that said he didn’t really care what that man was. Only one Uruwashi needed to live, the important one. Besides, Mamoru had his chance, now it was Tristan’s turn.
Chrysanthe fidgeted. “Professor—”
“Please!” he said with a boisterous laugh nearly unbecoming of him. “Still calling me that? After all we’ve been through together.” He was mocking her and she frowned up at him.
“Why did you make me pretend I knew who Tristan’s father was? I had never even heard of Tristan until you came to me. And Agamemnon, what’s to happen to him? Is he really dead?”
The Professor cocked his head, his eyes filled with condescending ‘silly little girl’ thoughts. “Don’t worry, everything’s just as it was meant to be, child. Now, if you’ll please be off? I’ve got much to do, people to see, lives to change.”
The man made motions of leaving, saying over his shoulder, “Oh yes, and the elf magic you can now wield, consider it a great gift, a peace treaty, if you will. We are even now.” Not that the young witch even remembered why they were off balance with each other to start with.
“Oh dear,” she said, shaking her head too quickly. There was a reason the pythia were not born able to manipulate such a dangerous force. Pythia gifts alone, without tapping in to the enormous wellspring of power from the earth herself, were more than strong enough. If all pythia were to be able to tap into the earth’s power, it would mean chaos the world over.
Her lips parted as she realized that she needed to stop this man and anyone associated with him. She glanced at her darling cohort. They needed to find Tristan and implore upon him the inherent danger of everything this man worked for.
Chrysanthe cleared her throat and shuffled back. �
�Er, right then… Silas? We should be off.”
The Professor turned to give Chrysanthe an affronted expression that was ruined by the smile he couldn’t hide. He could see the shift in her thoughts written all over her face. He let the couple get several, comfortable steps away.
“Okay,” he said and they stopped to look back at him. He took a small step towards them. “I understand.” In another step he let the vial stashed up his sleeve slip into his palm before he uncapped it and tossed the contents on the unsuspecting couple.
POISED on her knees in front of the freshly planted sapling, Ash’s head bowed over her hands in a silent prayer. Tristan stood a few feet behind her, arms crossed over his chest, frowning at the night.
“You’re sure no one will disturb him here?”
Ash finished her prayer and sighed, opening her eyes. “Greeks are a superstitious people. Legends live on. They are timeless. No one would dare disturb a witch’s home, even one long abandoned.”
Tristan dropped his arms to his side, his frown deepening. “You sure that tree will grow? It looks sick.”
She touched the tree, feeling its life leak into her fingers. It was good to be herself again. “Mamoru’s ashes will give it a strong life.” With a little mental push, she put an added safeguard on the tree to protect it from the harshness of the world.
Tristan nodded. There’d always been a part of him moderately horrified by the whole idea of burying a person under the cold, damp earth to rot. And embalming? Forget that noise. So when Ash said they were going to cremate Mamoru, he felt instant relief. He also liked the idea that this sickly little tree would take nourishment from those ashes and live on.
“Are you okay?” Ash asked, gliding over to him.
Tristan nodded, made a big show of digging out the flask he’d found in Mamoru’s bag, taking a drink and putting it away. His dominate hand being in a cast didn’t help but he wasn’t about to go around asking pythia to fix it for him. He’d had enough of witches for a long, long time.
“We should come back next year, pay our respects.”
She put her arms around his waist, relieved that he didn’t pull away. He’d been distant since returning from Crete. “Yes,” she answered softly and then sighed when Tristan wiggled out of her hold when she tried to rest her head on his chest.
“You never said,” he said before taking another drink. “Who killed Genoveva? Was it Mamoru?” He was so caught up in everything, he never saw who got the final blow.
Ash couldn’t help but smile. “I did.”
“Really?” Another sip and then the flask was empty. He’d refill it at the hotel. Too bad they wouldn’t have whatever it was Mamoru had filled it with—whatever it was, it wasn’t just alcohol. That shit had a nice kick to it. Enough to get even him drunk fast. “Good for you.”
“Thank you.”
Tristan’s shoulders slumped. He couldn’t believe they were actually having this conversation. He’d say he was turning into a sociopath if his conscious wasn’t trying to kill him. “Uh, when you, in his last blood, did he tell you things?”
Ash nodded, looking morose. “It wasn’t much, I’m afraid. And what I do know now of the Uruwashi, even Mamoru wasn’t certain would help you much. He thought your father was half faerie and elf as well, convinced of it.”
“Did he, humph?”
“You still hold doubts?”
“No, no. I think it makes sense, it’s just my interaction with the races didn’t leave me all tingly and shiny feeling about being one is all.”
Ash smiled sadly. “Aberrant of their kind. And if you are part Uruwashi, faerie and elf, then you are something unprecedented, there is no other like you in the history of Uruwashi.” The truth was, the thought scared Mamoru a little, but she wouldn’t tell Tristan that and hurt his already sensitive feelings. There was just too much turmoil in Tristan tonight. Perhaps in time, when his nature and conscious found equilibrium again, they would talk more in depth on their lost friend and theories.
Tristan let out a long sigh that ended in a groan. “Shame we couldn’t get to Agamemnon before whoever offed him. We might have been able to find out who this mysterious Professor is… my old man.” Hell, maybe they weren’t even the same person. But Tristan had a strong suspicion that the Professor, the one who gave Genoveva the humanize spell and, yeah, his father were all the same person. But suspicion was far from certainty.
“Perhaps.”
“You don’t think so?”
“I cannot say why, but I feel as though Agamemnon would not have told us anything. That is to say, he would not have known anything to be told. Whoever is pulling the strings on this farce would have ensured that Agamemnon would not tell us anything.”
Guess they had already, dead men can’t talk.
“Chrysanthe must really not a know a thing, it’s the only reason I can think she was allowed to remain alive.”
Tristan narrowed his eyes on her. “You still don’t think the Professor is the top guy?”
She shook her head. “I do not know why, but no.” Maybe it was one of her lost memories trying to find solidity again.
“Why else would he have gone through the trouble of erasing your encounter? But leaving mine?”
“Perhaps I knew him.” Sure, she’d spent most of her undead life a captive, but she’d been on the outside long enough to meet plenty of people of many races.
Tristan started. “Really? You think so?”
“I think that is the most likely reason.”
He nodded slowly. “I trust your instincts.”
Ash flinched, surprised that his words and thoughts were dead honest.
Not noticing her shock, he continued on. “Besides, I don’t think that guy was my father.” He stopped and turned to face her. “That’s just bullshit, right?”
Ash frowned up at him from inches away and whispered, “With my book gone, I cannot look myself for a memory spell, but if I ask my pythia contact in Hong Kong if she might help, then I can tell you for sure what there is to remember.”
“Good idea,” he muttered.
She reached for him, but was denied when he turned away. She should have expected this. Not only did he lose the only person in the world who could even begin to understand him, but she’d betrayed Tristan. He knew why she had his memories taken, understood it on a purely objective level. But it still hurt him to know that she’d go so far, and for what? Because Tristan wasn’t one-percent sure it was just to protect him. He suspected something significant, life changing even, happened back in that French dungeon. While he hated that Ash didn’t trust him with the truth, a part of him was convinced she was right. He was terrified of the monster he was.
“Tristan.”
“No,” he said, shaking his head as he started down the hill towards the house. He knew what she heard from him and didn’t care. He had no reason to mask his thoughts from her. Hell, maybe she could figure out how he really felt and tell him, because he wasn’t sure anymore. “No. I don’t want to know anymore. I really don’t. Whatever I did, it scared the shit out of you, probably me too. So, let’s just leave it alone.”
“But you are upset…” Ash kept just behind him and muttered, “Still.”
He snorted a condescending laugh. “Yeah, I am. I mean, you had Yuki steal a part of me. Did you even bother asking me my opinion before you did it?”
“No.”
“You know what, I’m over it. Okay? Let’s just not talk about it again. I get it, I do. I just, I don’t want to think about it anymore.”
Ash nodded. She heard the words out of his mouth but his thoughts, they never lied. Neither did Tristan, not truly. He wasn’t lying to himself so much as trying to convince himself to feel like it didn’t bother him. Ash was more than guilty of the same thing.
“A’done?” Desmond asked as the others came down the hill towards the car.
Ash only gave Desmond a dark look in passing. Tristan didn’t even hear the man as he kept moving toward
s the car. He was tired, his hand ached and he was ready to get out of this country. No offense Greece.
“Right then, we aff?”
The vampires stopped a few feet from the car where Tristan leaned against a fender with his arms crossed and waited. Ash smiled at him and answered, “No.”
Curious, Tristan stood off the car, wondering what she was up to.
“Whut do yew mean, no?”
“Tristan and I will not be returning to Japan.”
Desmond’s green eyes widened. “Asta?”
Tristan grinned at the big vampire’s obvious vexation and Ash’s sly expression.
“We are going home.”
“Whut in the hell do yew mean, home?” Desmond took a step into her so that they were almost pressed chest to chest, imposing himself into her personal space. “Japan is your home.”
“No, this,” Ash motioned to the decimated building. “This was once my home, my family. Living with Haruka, that was my home. And now, he is my home,” Ash said nodding towards Tristan. “My home is wherever that man is and if he does not wish to return to that tiny apartment in Japan, then we will not.”
The American smirked at Desmond as he marched towards the back of the car and pulled Mamoru’s bag from the trunk.
The Scotsman’s was going off in slurred Gaelic, storming after the couple as they marched into the house. They stopped in the middle of the space and Tristan handed Ash the bag. She rolled her eyes at Desmond’s continued tirade, taking the bag from Tristan and checking it one last time.
The identifiable items: Mamoru’s knife collection, a small notebook filled with handwritten Japanese, the flask Tristan just emptied, a tin of Japanese candy and a small ring box with a peacock colored pearl were removed and packed into Tristan’s bag. That left the unidentifiable: spell bombs and vials of god-knew-what. It was bad business to use an unknown pythia’s spells, could be anything. At Ash’s suggestion, they agreed to bury the bag for everyone’s safety in a place where no one would bother it, ever.
“Desmond!” Ash snapped and huffed. “Shut up.”
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