The Shadow's Son (8 page)

L
ondon had changed dramatically in the last one hundred and ninety years since Aya had been here. She marveled at all the advances so much she almost forgot the depression she had sunk herself into. Not even the 747
airplane
she and Tristan had taken to get here had pulled her out. Usually, she would have taken in everything about that. He'd arranged a counterfeit passport for her, which was much more effective than compulsion. Airport security and all the rules and forms that had to be filled out and followed puzzled her. Humans had become more suspicious of one another to a point where it almost seemed absurd.

Tristan apparently liked the finer things in life and had procured first class tickets and a rather fine room at The Ritz, one of the best hotels in the city. Not that she complained. He said he had a black credit card that let people know that he was stinking rich. Aya had no need for finances. She had always taken what she had needed from people who had too much of it to care.

The first few days, Aya walked the city that was so eerily familiar. Cars, trucks, busses and taxis clogged the streets where once there were horse and carts, electric lights replaced darkness and tourists flocked to the museums and landmarks like locusts. She walked streets that used to be the slums of Cheapside, past the gates of palaces that had housed some of the most terrifying and powerful monarchs of the Middle Ages. There, where people picnicked and took their morning jog, she remembered the gallows of Marble Arch, where humans had died in the thousands.

The explosion of art and culture that had overcome London was something else. Aya almost felt sorry that she had missed it all. She would have, but all she could think about was Zac and how he'd walked away from her believing that she had betrayed his trust. Used him. Tricked him.

But for all her agony, she couldn't help but feel relief that she only had to look out for herself again. Tristan was
smart,
they'd worked together for over a hundred years. He knew that she was a solitary being and didn't feel the need to latch onto her. She didn't need to protect him. Love was an unnatural feeling to her. She would do anything for Zac, even if that meant leaving to protect him. He'd said it himself. Their love was driving him mad. Perhaps if they had met under other circumstances it would be different.

Aya couldn't love him the way he wanted. The way he
needed
. Not right now, not until she found Victoria's secret and Regulus was a pile of ash. When the threat was eliminated, she would find him again and hope it wasn't too late. She needed his love as much as he needed hers.

Hope was a strange thing.

"You need to forget him," Tristan's voice broke through her melancholy. "Wallowin' is not productive, Arrow."

"How do you know what I'm thinking?" she hissed.

"It's written all over your face," he shrugged. "Regulus will keep. I know for a fact that he's not in London right now. He will come back, but we should use this time to find out about Victoria."

"Yes, of course."

"That is, after all one of the reasons we came here."

"Where do you suggest we begin?" she asked, having no idea how to go about it in this day and age.

"The British Library," he said. "It holds a lot of records.
Births, deaths, that kind of thing.
If we're lucky it will hold records of her ancestors."

"I don't like our chances," she said. "I have a feeling that any trace of her might have been erased. Especially after Regulus turned her."

"You forget, Arrow," he winked. "I was in Regulus' back pocket for two hundred years and I have a very good memory."

She sat up sharply, "What do you know, Tristan?"

"I know her true name. I'm hopin' that we will find what we need with that. There is a high chance that everythin' is there…"

Aya sighed, cutting him off, "Maybe, but don't get your hopes up. Witches are annoying when they want to hide something."

"That they are, but I don't know where else to start."

Truth was, neither did Aya. She hadn't known much about Victoria other than the glaringly obvious. She had been a witch and foolishly, she had been in love with Regulus. From what Zac had told her, she had fallen out of favor with the Roman and had followed her to America, where she had already gone to ground before she could catch up.

"Then," she said. "Let's go to the library."

The British Library stood near Kings Cross and St Pancras station. The buildings had been modernized somewhat, but they still bore a striking resemblance to what they had once been and still were. Train Stations. Here, Tristan told Aya, you could get a train to Paris in
under
three hours through a tunnel that had been built under the channel.

Watching the flow of humans, Aya shook her head. She couldn't seem to get over the amount of people going to and fro, into the station and the Tube, onto busses and on foot. London had always been busy, but it had multiplied by thousands.

To her annoyance, Tristan pulled her down the street and into the main foyer of the library, where the clerk sitting at the cloakroom eyed them suspiciously. They really were a pair. Tristan with his tall stature and broad shoulders and shock of curly hair and her in her dark clothing and long hair which he had told her made her look like something called a punk. To human eyes, they didn't fit together at all.

She glared at the clerk, who looked away quickly as she followed Tristan towards the stairs, taking them two at a time. Coming out into a modern looking reading room, books lining every available space, she asked, "So, what's Victoria's real name?"

"Dowling was her family name. She came from Wiltshire to the west. That's all I know."

"Surely she would have been intelligent enough to use a different family name," Aya rolled her eyes as they came to the enquiries desk.

"Perhaps, but we have nothin' else to go on." Tristan turned to the woman who sat there and said, "Hello."

The librarian looked up from the desk and smiled. She seemed rather young to be stuck in the library all day. Late twenties, perhaps, long red hair and pale skin that was dusted with freckles. She pushed her glasses up onto the bridge of her nose and said, "How may I help you?"

Tristan leant forwards on the desk and winked at her. "If you don't mind, could you find everythin' you can on one Victoria Dowling, born in Wiltshire in the mid to late 1700s. She died around 1788."

The librarian frowned and shook her head. Finally, she smiled brightly at the vampire and nodded, "Of course. I might be some time, sir. Do you want to wait or come back?"

Aya gave him a look. "We will wait," he told her and she hurried off into some dark recess of the library to do their compelled bidding.

"What are you really hopin' to find, Arrow?"

"Victoria was a witch.
It has to be something to do with it
,
I know it
. Perhaps we can find a living relative, a name that I remember, a story, a picture, a
grave site
. Anything. Witches are secretive, but that doesn't mean I can't find what they're hiding."

Tristan sat in one of the chairs at a free table and kicked his feet up, much to the annoyance of a woman sitting across the way. "And what do you think she has to do with your boyfriend's blood? It wasn't like she was anythin' special."

"I have a feeling, Tristan," she whispered, sitting beside him. "Zac's blood is potent to me, to my abilities. It has something to do with those parts of me. I know it."

"You never told me where you came from," he said carefully. "I know you're a hybrid, Arrow.
But with what?
Sometimes you scare the hell out of me."

"I'm not at liberty to discuss such things," she said absently.

"But Zac knows all of it, doesn't he?"

"That was a matter of consequence. He is bound to secrecy as much as I."

"You gave him your blood." Tristan was shaking his head.

"It seems I don't give you enough credit, Tristan. You've become more observant in the past six hundred years. Congratulations."

"Of course," he shrugged. "Hangin' out with the bad guys makes observation a necessity."

Sighing, Aya didn't bother answering. She didn't have the patience to argue with him, especially since he was in such a cocky mood. Instead, she let her eyes wander the reading room, taking in the stacks, where shelves upon shelves of books stretched up three floors, the edges of each lined with thick glass. Watching the humans who sat at the tables around them, she regarded what each
were
reading. Most seemed to be students, some had piles of medical texts, while others had old looking books on ancient cultures.

One man caught her attention, though. He didn't seem to be doing anything. Taking in his rumpled appearance, she frowned. He looked like he hadn't slept in days, his messy brown hair looked greasy, there was several days of stubble on his chin and his eyes were dull. Looking at the books he was studying, she tilted her head to the side to read the titles more clearly.
Witchcraft in the Middle Ages, Celtic Myth
and one that made her eyes narrow,
Wales and Witchcraft 1542.

1542 was the year she assisted a woman in northern Wales who had been harassed by a witch who'd given herself to evil. That woman, the witch who had been pure, she was one of Gabby's ancestors and the witch that had written the summoning spell that had woken her all those years later in Ashburton.
The spell that Gabby and Zac had cast.
She wondered what the book was about and what exactly it told about that time.

She caught the gaze of the man, who automatically glanced back to his work. Looking him over, curiously, she didn't detect anything out of the ordinary. If he knew who they were, he would have taken the first opportunity to leave. Most people would. He was still there fifteen minutes later working, and it was obvious he was in for the long haul.

Tristan raised an eyebrow at her and she shrugged, disregarding the man. His research could mean anything and they had been in London for only three days. In that time, Aya was positive that they had not been seen or followed by anyone. And when she was positive about
something, that
meant she was always right.

When the librarian finally came back, Aya had had enough. Tristan reached the desk before she did and she stifled a sigh.

"I've found something, but it's not much," the librarian said, pushing a piece of paper across the desktop.

Aya snatched it before Tristan could get his hands on it. "A grave site?" she exclaimed, her eyes scanning the paper.

"Yes, it's the same name and it matches the dates you gave, give or take a few months. It's all I could find, I'm afraid."

"No," Tristan said, taking the paper from Aya. "You've been a great help. Thank you."

Aya glared at him and turned back towards the librarian. Leaning forward she said, "Now forget we were ever here."

The librarian looked confused for a moment, her gaze piercing through the two vampires like they weren't even there. When she turned away, Aya snatched the paper back from Tristan and strode across the room towards the exit.

"Where you goin' in such a hurry?" He had to run to catch up with her.

"Where do you think?" she rolled her eyes, shaking the piece of paper in his face. "Salisbury."