The Awakening (19 page)

"Zac," Nye said, grabbing his arm.
"Leave off, mate."

Zac blinked hard and let Isobel go, taking a few
steps back. Seemed like he still had a little bit of work to do controlling his
anger, but maybe that would always be there.

"Take her home," he said, turning away.
"We got the guy. It's okay now."

"You knew this would happen?" Isobel
asked with a horrified gasp. "You used me as 
bait
?"

"Vampires are like mice," Nye explained.
"Where there's one, there's always another."

"I can't believe you assholes."

"Nothing would've happened to you,
Isobel," the spy said gently. "Between the two of us, nothing would
have gotten past."

"Except maybe that scary fairy guy that
everyone's so worried about."

Zac turned around, anger flaring. "Take her home,
Nye."

The spy nodded and threaded his arm through
Isobel's and began leading her way. It was a dick move using her like they had,
but they couldn't move her anywhere while she was still being watched. That
meant they couldn't make a play for the grimoire without Aed finding out about
it.

He wondered what Aya and Tristan had gotten out of
the other vampire. Depending on what he knew, that would determine how soon
they needed to get the book. If Zac had his way, they'd go there right now and
snatch the thing. In and out like ghosts.

Looking down at the dead vampire and the mess he'd
made, Zac sighed. It was just another mess to clean up in a long history of
them. You'd think after a century, he would've learnt how to be a little more…
neat
.

Gabby looked up at the abandoned warehouse and
sighed. What a cliché. She wondered when they'd have to stop lurking in the
shadows and hiding desiccated bodies. Probably never, which made it all that
much harder to handle. Winding her way through the warren of scaffolding and
rubble, she found Tristan and Aya in a lonely corner, far away from human ears.

The vampire they'd found in Isobel's apartment was
chained to a concrete pylon and looked extremely pissed off. He was covered in
blood and his own saliva and his eyes were totally black with rage. Gabby
didn't like it, but they had to get answers.

"Did you get it out of him?" she asked as
all three vampires looked up at her approach.

"With a hell of a lot of compulsion," Aya
said. "Aed did a messy job on him."

"He's broken," Tristan said, crossing his
arms over his chest. "His mind is total chaos."

"We did manage to get a few things out of him.
Enough to piece it together."

"Let's hear it," Gabby said.

"It seems like Aed was able to glean a lot
more from Regulus' blood than just his sister's deaths."

"Katrin…" Gabby said with a groan.
"He knows about her grimoire."

"Aye," Tristan said. "He wants to
take out the spell before anyone can find it and use it against him. We
gathered he could use his power to track it down somehow, but needed some extra
help to actually get his hands on it."

"He got this guy to do his leg work," Aya
explained. "He didn't want to be seen, so he found this guy on the street,
turned him and compelled him to follow Isobel."

"He was tryin' to lure her out so they could
snatch her and take her to Aed."

"We thought it was just so he could get into
the vault," Aya added.

"But?" Gabby asked with a frown.

"There seems like there is another reason he's
interested in her, but we're not sure. At least, this guy didn't know."

"I want to see," she said, approaching
the vampire.

"Watch him," Tristan warned. "He's
lost his humanity."

"Aed compelled him to revert to an animalistic
state if he was compromised," Aya said. "He'll bite your fingers off
if you're not careful."

Gabby nodded and reached out tentatively. For this
to work, she needed physical contact. After witnessing Katrin's maiming so
vividly, she wasn't keen on repeating it and especially not by having her
fingers bitten off by a rabid vampire. She liked her hand just as it was.

The vampire snapped at her viciously and she drew
her hand back before biting the bullet and slapping her palm against his
forehead. As soon as she made contact she dove right into his foggy mind and
his body slackened. Wasting no time, she sifted through his memories and it was
just as Aya and Tristan had said. This vampire had been compelled to lure
Isobel out of her apartment so Aed could snatch her. He was after the spell
that created the one thing that could end him for good.

Then she came across something she wasn't
expecting. A loose thread leading to the impossible. In his haste, Aed had left
a calling card and a sloppy one at that. It stunk of inexperience because now,
she had a way into Aed's mind. Gabby knew she had to be quick or else he'd
sense her presence.

Following the thread, she found herself standing in
a courtyard, a centuries old building around her. This must be inside the
University grounds. The sky was overcast and students walked to and fro, all
bundled up in coats and scarves against the cold, books and bags in their arms.
Something inside of her knew that this was the last of the rabble for the
semester. Exams were just starting and Christmas holidays were on everyone's
minds.

Glancing across the courtyard, she saw a woman in a
bright green coat. She'd seen her before and it was who she was counting on
seeing. A shock of red hair peeked out from under a cream woolen hat and her
heart stopped. She watched the woman as she exited the building on the right
and crossed the courtyard into the library, just as she'd done every day that
week.

Following her inside, she watched as the woman went
into a room and came back out, sans coat and bag.

"Hey, Izzy," a man called out as she
passed a large desk. He sat behind a computer she supposed was a catalogue of
some kind. He worked here as well.

"Hey Matt," she answered. "Slaving
away as per usual I see."

"Slave to the wage," he said with a
 laugh. "You researching up in the vault today?"

"Yep." She seemed rather happy about it,
bouncing on her heels.

"Lucky," Matt answered with a jealous
sigh. "They don't let me touch anything in there and I work here. So
unfair."

Her vision started to blur and Gabby jerked back,
snatching her hand away from the vampire, the warehouse coming back into focus.
That was close. Too close.

"Gabby?" Aya asked.

"He's trying to get into the vault," she
said, peering at the vampire. "Izzy is his way in. He's been watching her
for days."

"Then we have to get in before he does,"
Tristan said. "Can we get rid of this guy yet? He's givin' me the you know
whats."

Gabby regarded the restrained vampire with sadness.
He was gone. Totally and utterly. The humane thing to do would be to put him
out of his misery. Covering her face with her cold hands, she nodded.

"I'll do it," Tristan said. "You can
go back to Isobel's and I will see you there."

"Thank you," Aya said and a moment later,
Gabby felt the hybrid's arm around her waist.

"Let's take a walk," she said. "By
the looks of you, you saw something a little more that what Tristan and I
managed to compel out of him, yes?"

As they walked through the abandoned warehouse and
back to the street Gabby thought over the scene in the library with Isobel and
the clerk named Matt. There had been something else there. Something she
couldn't understand. "It was like he
recognized
her. How could he,
when he's been bound for three thousand years?"

"Well, he's not getting close to her again, so
hopefully we never have to find out."

"I hope not."

"I know you were worried about involving
Isobel," Aya said kindly. "I know it's hard, but she would've been in
more trouble if we hadn't of."

"There was no way of knowing…"

"No, there wasn't. Blaming yourself isn't
going to help, Gabby. We need to find the grimoire and we need to find someone
to turn. Isobel won't be safe until Aed is dead. None of us will. We keep
fighting until it's over. There is no other choice."

Aya could be callous and inappropriate at times,
but she was right on the money. They had a way forward and they had to take it,
no matter the consequence for themselves. If they didn't…things would be a lot
worse than they already were.

"Lets go back to Isobel's and work out a
plan," she said to Aya. "We're going to get the grimoire
tonight."

CHAPTER TWENTY

Alex stood in the arrivals hall at Heathrow airport
and rubbed his tired eyes. What the hell had crossed his mind when he got on
that plane? He'd never been out of the country before and now he was in the United
Kingdom. Didn't they drive on the opposite side of the road here?

He pulled out his cell and turned it on, hoping
that it would connect to some network. He needed to call his sister, Isobel.
Last he heard, she was still in Oxford. That was, until he'd received a
voicemail from her almost two days ago. Her frantic voice had terrified him.

"
Alex, it's Izzy. Something's happened. We
need your help like, yesterday. Please bro, call me back as soon as you get
this. Please, your friends are here. Gabby and some guy, Zac and some
scary woman. Call me back as…
"  The message had cut off
along with his heartbeat. Izzy was in trouble and the fact that Gabby and Zac
were there…that could only mean trouble of the crazy kind. He assumed the
'scary woman' was Aya.

When Aya had disappeared and Zac had left with
Regulus, he thought that was it. None of them were coming back. Then Sam and
Liz had moved to LA and he was on his own. He'd been happy for a while, but it
seemed that it was only a mirage. And now here he was standing in the airport
in London in the early hours of the morning. What the hell was he thinking?

Twelve hours on a stuffy plane and a short stopover
in New York saw him beat. It was an odd sensation, knowing he was standing in
another country. The signs were different, the prices were all in pounds,
people of all different nationalities walked around him…it was just strange and
he hadn't even left the airport yet. His worry for his sister hadn't
abated, though. Spying an information desk, he walked up and smiled at the guy
behind the counter.

"How can I get to Oxford?" he asked.

"Oxford?" the clerk scratched his head.
"Well, you can go into London and get a train or a coach, or you can just
rent a car. It's a few hours from here."

"What's the quickest way?"

"This time of the morning? You'd be better off
renting a car. Hardly any traffic on the motorways at this time. Take you less
than an hour or so."

"Thanks," he said, tapping the counter
top and looking for a rental desk of some sort.

Walking through the concourse, he found a bunch of
signs for different companies. Stopping at the first one he startled a
sleepy looking woman. Seemed Heathrow was a twenty-four hour kind of place.

"Can I help you?" she asked, sitting up
straight.

"I'd like to rent a car, please."

As the woman put through his details, his mind
couldn't stop focusing on Isobel. He was worried…like mega worried about her.
When Gabby had left, he'd assumed she was going to travel. You know, do the
backpacking thing, but it seemed like that was a lie on her behalf. She was
obviously in cahoots with Zac and Aya about something and his bet it had
something to do with those Roman vampires. What exactly, he couldn't say.
Whenever he thought about it it felt like too much hard work. He just felt confused
and blank about the whole thing.

One thing was certain, though. When he got his
hands on Zac, he'd throttle him, vampire or no vampire.

"There's a courtesy bus out front that'll take
you to the lot," the woman said, breaking him out of his thoughts.
"This time of the morning, there'll be one there waiting." She
pointed to the automatic doors behind him. "Just out there and to your
left."

Once Alex had finally located the car he stared at
the right hand drive and scratched his head. This was mental. Absolutely, one
hundred percent the most stupidest thing he'd ever done. He slid into the seat
and fumbled with the GPS and had a mild heart attack when he saw how
complicated the highways were around the airport.

Isobel better be in a shit load of trouble, because
he was blaming all of this on her.

When Alex finally arrived in Oxford, he killed the
engine and looked up at Isobel's apartment. He'd never seen it before, so he
took a moment to take in the place that his sister had called home for the past
three years. He was fast learning that everything in the UK was smaller and
super old. The street that he was in looked like something out of medieval
Britain with it's cobblestoned road and bluestone buildings.

That's how he saw them walking up the street, Isobel
and some guy. He held her around the waist, almost possessively, but that's not
what made his blood boil. The guy looked like a thug in his big black coat and
boots and his face… Without a second thought, he opened the car door,
slammed it behind him and strode down the street.

Isobel's eyes met his and for a moment she didn't
say anything, she just looked at him like he was some kind of mirage.

"Alex?" she finally gasped.

"This is your brother?" the guy with the
scarred face asked.

"And who are you?" Alex asked, puffing
out his chest. "I don't like the look of you. What are you doing here?
What are you messed up in, Izzy?"

"The name's Nye," the guy said and then
pointed to his face. "War hero. Thanks a lot."

Isobel pushed the guy away and grabbed her brother's
hand. "You can't be here," she said, pulling him forward toward her
building.

"You said you needed my help," he
exclaimed.

"I said call me back, not get on a fucking
plane."

"Siblings," Nye said with a chuckle.

"Vampires, Izzy? Really?" He rose an eyebrow
at her.

"It's not what you think."

"It's not?"

"You might wanna go inside and have this
conversation," Nye said, nodding at a passerby.

Isobel dragged Alex up the stairs and into her
apartment. Normally he would've stopped to take in his sister's home, but today
he was mad and nobody was giving him any answers. Nye walked in behind them and
he almost blew a fuse.

"You invited him in?" he almost yelled at
his sister. "What the fuck, Izzy?"

"He's a good guy, Alex. He might be a little
rough, but he helped save me."

"Save you from what?" When neither of
them answered, he yelled, "Saved you from what?"

Nye placed a hand on his arm. "Calm down,
mate. Take a breath, okay?"

"Get your hands off me. Don't even think of
trying that freaky eye shit with me."

Nye stood back, holding his hands out. "Suit
yourself."

Turning sharply at the sound of the door opening,
Alex's eyes collided with Gabby's familiar brown.

"Alex?" Gabby exclaimed.

"Gabby," he said sharply, not even
bothering with a hello. "You better give me some answers, because I'm
fucking mad as all hell."

"What are you doing here?" This time, it
was Aya who spoke and he realized that Zac was behind her and another guy he
didn't recognize. How many vampires could fit in here for fuck's sake?

"I called him," Isobel explained. "I
didn't mean for him to come. I just wanted to talk to him."

"You called him?" Gabby exclaimed.
"I wanted to keep him out of it."

"He knows about this. What was I supposed to
do? He's my brother," Isobel exclaimed.

"He doesn't know about
this
," Aya
said, waiving her hands around wildly. "I compelled him to forget."

"I know you're vampires," Alex said like
they were all stupid. "I don't know what the hell you're doing with my
sister. I'd appreciate it if you all fucked off and left her out of whatever
crazy scheme you've cooked up."

Gabby glared at Aya. "You compelled him,
too?"

"What do you mean, too?" Alex asked.

"Oh, for heaven's sake," Aya exclaimed.
"You asked me to, Alex. And I compelled Liz to forget about what I am. So
what."

"Maybe I wouldn't have a problem with it, but
I sure as hell do now." He pointed at Isobel. "If she so much as gets
hurt…"

"Oh, for crying out loud," Aya exclaimed
and was across the room in a flash. Grasping Alex's face, she looked him right
in the eye and said, "I asked you to forget some things. Now's the time to
remember them." She let him go and sat back on the sofa like nothing had
happened.

Alex blinked a couple of times before shaking his
head. "Geesus, Aya. Be nice about it."

"I fixed you, can we get the grimoire
now?" she asked, exasperated.

"Grimoire? Someone better explain to me what's
going on, because I'm going insane here."

Zac snorted, stifling a laugh. "You don't know
how appropriate that comment is."

Alex, ground his teeth together, trying to keep
under control.

Gabby took his hand with a sigh and sat him at the
table. "Let me explain this as simply as I can…"

The story she told him next seemed like a
farfetched fairytale and fairies
were
involved. Though, they weren't anything
like the glittery flying things in picture books. Gabby told him everything
from beginning to end. The truth behind the Romans, the Tuatha and their war
with the Celestines, the Coven…everything that had happened in the last few
months laid out. When she was finally done, he slumped back in the chair and
stared into space. An insane fairy vampire hybrid was after his sister for a
book
?

"I can't let anything happen to Izzy," he
said after a moment. "I'll do anything to help, just leave her out of it."

"You can't help with this, Alex," Zac
said. "Aya won't let anything happen to her."

"Neither will I," Gabby added.

"You want to break into the University vault
to get this grimoire?"

"Yes," Aya said.

"Where did that guy go?" He suddenly
realized that that Nye guy was gone. He probably took off somewhere between the
fairy and Aya's witch massacre.

"Nye's out with Maddox doing some
reconnaissance on the security system," Zac answered.

"Who's Maddox?" Alex asked, glancing
between the vampires.

"Another vampire who's helping."

"And where's Regulus?"

When nobody replied, he glanced between them all
and caught the expression on Gabby's face.

"He's dead," Zac said gently, glancing at
the witch.

"And you're sad about it?" Alex didn't
understand. Wasn't he the bad guy?

"He was our only chance at killing the hybrid
forever," Aya said gently.

"That's why we need the grimoire. It was
Katrin's," Gabby said with a sniff. Did she care for him? Alex wasn't sure
what he should think about that. "It has the spell that created the
Romans. We need it to…"

"The only way..." Alex started to
interrupt, but then fell silent.

"It's imperative we get our hands on Katrin's
grimoire before Aed does," Aya stated.

"That's why you need the book," he
exclaimed. "You need to make another vampire..." Understanding
suddenly dawned on him and he stood, anger boiling to the surface. "Keep
your hands off her. No, Izzy. Is that what you're doing?
No
..."

"Alex," Gabby began. "We haven't
even got the spell yet..."

"I won't allow it," he hissed. "I'll
do anything, but leave her out of it."

"It hasn't come to that yet."

"I'll do it. Change me."

"You can't be serious," Isobel exclaimed.

Alex turned to face his big sister. "Oh, I'm
dead fucking serious. I'm not letting you ruin your life."

"And you'll ruin yours?" she shrieked at
him.

"If I have my way," Gabby interrupted,
"I'm not changing either of you."

"What other choice do you have?" Alex
asked. "I may only be a small town kinda guy, but I understand a bind when
I see one. You don't have any options. Just the one and it's me."

Maybe he'd regret it once he had a chance to cool
down. Maybe he wouldn't. The only thing he was certain of was the fact that
he'd protect his sister from all of this, no matter the consequence for him.