Death's Redemption (The Eternal Lovers Series) (7 page)

“Aye, you bloody fool.” She spat. “The O’Hares and the O’Fallens. Including me.” Touching the spot above her heart, she raised a brow and his lips twitched, beguiled by the brogue that only seemed to come out when she was having a bout of temper.

The woman had spunk. He kind of liked it.

“If you are truly a seer, then you’d know to toss that knowledge around is tantamount to a death sentence. So what did you do, woman, to let those vampires in on the secret?” Frenzy asked.

“I’m aware of that. It’s why I was so protected. Only very few within HPA knew who I really was, let alone that I even existed. I was perfect in keeping my secret; no one knew and that’s the way it would have stayed, if not for what I did.”

“And what is HPA exactly?” George interjected, lips twisting into a macabre version of a smile that showed slightly rotted teeth along the gum lines. For a four-hundred-plus-year-old lone wolf, he was miraculously well preserved. Without the pack magic to aid in regeneration, most loners died within their first century of excommunication.

Tucking a blond curl behind her ear, Mila wet her lips. “Human Protection Agency. HPA. Not the most creative acronym, but it got the point across.”

“And mortals wonder why we can never take them seriously.” Frenzy rolled his eyes at the absurd name. “So what exactly did you do? If you made it to thirty-two without alerting anyone before, you must have known better.”

If she’d still been human he knew her cheeks would have pinkened. Notching her chin high, she gave him a withering look that caused his pulse to stir. “Look, I didn’t pick the name. Fact is, we’re learning a lot about our backyard neighbors, most of it bad. You all may feel you have the final say on power structure, but Earth belongs to us, and we’ll defend what’s ours. As to what I did, it no longer matters. What matters is that my cover is forever blown.”

Snorting, Frenzy shook his head. “‘Us’? Dear girl, you are one of
us
now.” He waved his thumb between them, intensely curious about what she’d done, but recognizing her show of temper to be nothing more than camouflage for embarrassment, he suffered a rare moment of sympathy and decided not to press that. She was right: what she’d done was inconsequential to the matter at hand.

Nostrils flaring, upper lip curling back, her look was savage and volatile. The air danced with the electric energy of her emotions.

“I’ll never be one of you. Even if you don’t kill me now, they will—they’ll find me and take me out.”

“The vampires?” Frenzy scoffed. “You can fend off a couple fangers now.”

“I’m not talking about those parasites. I’m talking about HPA, about the shadow. Pick your poison. Either one will have a go at me.”

Brows forming a question mark, Frenzy’s lips thinned. “What do you mean?”

“Exactly what I said. HPA…because I know too much, I don’t doubt they’ve already sicced a tracker on my arse.” She shrugged as if that one were inconsequential. “As to the shadow, well…that is the seer’s greatest enemy. The O’Hares and O’Fallens never did learn of its origins; everything about the creature is steeped in mystery. The only thing I know to be fact is that it will not stop until it has consumed every last seer left.”

“What? Why?” George’s heavy lisp grew more pronounced, each word more a puff of breath than anything.

“I don’t know.”

Frenzy rubbed his jaw. “So are HPA and the shadow connected?”

She shrugged. “I doona know. But I doubt it. The creature has haunted my people down for centuries. It’s why my life is a constant game of hide and seek. I never lay roots, and rarely stay in one place long enough for anyone to even learn my true name. It’s the only way to escape it, to always stay one step ahead. I was doing fine, until recently. Did you hear of the Candyman killer?”

He frowned. “Candyman?”

“Aye.” She nodded. “The killer leaving bodies of women contorted into grotesque positions with a candy ring on their ring finger?”

He had heard of something like that. “I may have. Why? What does this have to do with either the shadow or HPA?”

“Everything. It’s why I was leaving the organization. I was set to flee again; if the vampires hadn’t found me I’d have been gone tomorrow morning.”

He frowned, still not connecting the dots.

Sighing, she tossed up her hands. “The bodies bore the shadow’s killing stamp.”

“And that was?”

Her lips thinned and he could read her indecision, that there was more to be said but she wasn’t willing to say it.

Switching tactics, he approached from another angle. “How do you know it was the shadow? Are you implying the Candyman and the shadow are the same?”

“No, I’m not…” Her words trailed off before pinning him with a hard glare. “I’ve told you all I will about that. Make no doubt, the shadow will find me and it will take me out. So either give me a knife now or not. But it will kill me and you won’t be able to stop it from happening.”

This wasn’t making sense. Did the woman have a death wish? Or was she speaking the truth? In all his years he’d never heard of a killing shadow. He was death; he should know of anything death-related, and yet the unmistakable quiver in her voice led him to realize that at the very least she believed what she was saying.

Her lips thinned and she turned her face to the side. Clearly she was done speaking, but he wasn’t done asking.

“What did you do to make the vampires aware of you?” Yes, he said he wouldn’t ask, but now with this shadow thing in the equation, maybe what she’d done was tied in after all.

She jutted her jaw out, something cold and raw flashing through her resinous gaze. “I did something I shouldn’t have, betrayed years of silence and blending in by one stupid, stupid…” Sighing, staring heavenward, she shook her head. “It doesn’t matter now.”

Frenzy suspected that maybe it did. He was just about to badger her more about it, but George cut in first.

“But what I don’t understand is why the vampires were trying to kill you. If you truly are a seer, and they knew that, why did they not keep you?”

Her smile was small and bitter. “Because there is only one part of me worth keeping; the rest is dispensable.”

Finally he understood. Why she’d hesitated earlier and sealed her lips, looked away. Because it was her one weakness. “Your eyes.” Frenzy waited until she turned that familiar gaze on him. The look in them heated every nerve ending inside him. So similar to Adrianna’s, and yet, there was a hardness and rawness in these he’d never seen in his lover’s.

Nodding as if reluctant to do so, she said, “Yes.”

But something was nagging at him. Something he couldn’t put his finger on. Things still weren’t adding up completely. A seer was rare, exceedingly so. Such a gift was invaluable to whoever possessed it, and yet by her own admission, not only were the vampires coming for her, so was this shadow creature. Why? Keeping a seer seemed the better route than simply taking her eyes and hoping to make sense of the visions on your own. Without a seer to decipher the truth, reading the future was a lot like trying to watch a blurred satellite image.

“What aren’t you telling me, Mila O’Fallen?”

Lips pouting prettily, she shook her head. “How do you know my name anyway? I never gave it to you.” Rubbing her forehead, she seemed deflated, defeated. As if this was merely a change of subject but not an answer she was particularly keen on learning.

“Lise gave it to me,” he said, intently studying her features. What was she keeping from him?

“Yeah.”

He had no idea what that “yeah” was for. It was almost as if she wasn’t even listening, not really.

“But why kill you? That smacks of counterintuitiveness,” Frenzy blurted out with frustration. “A seer is vaunted, treasured. They should have done anything to take you.”

“They were pumping me full of venom. I do honestly think their intention in the beginning was to take me, but I”—she twisted her lips—“I goaded them to a killing frenzy. It was my one hope of them not getting what they wanted from me. You don’t technically need a seer around to see the future, so long as you have our eyes. Though it’s definitely easier to keep us than to kill us. I’m pretty sure they didn’t much care by the time I was done taunting them.”

He snorted. That he could believe.

She poked at the squirrel, a heavy sigh spilling from her. “I hate to admit this, but I’m starving. Could I…” She swallowed. “Could I have a knife? Just to cut it up?”

“Use your fingers. You’re no longer mortal, so stop trying to hang on to human conventions.”

She hissed. “You think I don’t know what sort of abomination I’ve become?” A stiff wind to blow through her hair and she’d remind him of Medusa with her poisonous locks.

Getting up, George walked over to a wooden shelf where he kept his plates and cutlery. “Sometimes hanging on to any vestige of our old selves helps to keep us sane.” While his words were directed at Mila, his censorious gaze was directed at Frenzy.

Returning a moment later, he sat the sterling silver butter knife in front of her. Thanking the shifter, she took the knife in hand and tapped the body of the blackened meat.

Jerking his head to the side, George shambled off to a corner of the room, in clear invitation for Frenzy to join him.

After one last glance at her, Frenzy walked over. “What, monk?”

“I suspect she’s lying.”

Frenzy’s lips thinned. “About which part? Are you claiming all she’s said isn’t the truth?” Because he didn’t honestly believe it. Frenzy was pretty sure she’d told them mostly everything.

“No.” George shook his head. “Most of it was true. HPA does indeed exist.”

“If it exists, then why did you ask her what it was?”

Wringing his hands together, he sighed. “To test her. HPA is a human watch group, and they do learn about the society of
others
. They keep eyes and ears open on us and know much.”

“And you know this how?” Frenzy growled, casting a quick glance at her. She was still tapping on the meat.

“I’m old; there isn’t much for someone like me to do. I cannot live among the mortals, I’m a target on all sides. So much time on my hands, I learn things. I keep my ears and my eyes open. I first heard of HPA twenty years ago.”

Rubbing the bridge of his brow, Frenzy shook his head. “Stop circling the wagons, George, and just spit it out.”

“HPA are mainly watchers. Rarely do they involve themselves in our world. And only to investigate potential homicides directly related to the killing of mortals. I doubt very much they will come seeking her out to kill her as she implied. They seem to take a very hands-off approach. They’re scholars, not killers.”

“Then she is insane?” He looked back at her. She was no longer playing with her food, just gazing at it intently with a pent-up, glassy-eyed stare.

“No, I suspect she merely mentioned them to throw you off the true scent. I believe she plans to escape you at some point.” The monk shook his head violently. “Her true threat comes from this shadow, and if I’m right, she’s in serious danger.”

Brows lowering, he frowned. “Why have I never learned of a shadow?”

Looking pointed, George growled. “Because you’ve kept yourself locked away in faerie land for so long you know little of the dangers living in this world now.”

Second time tonight someone had told him that. First Lise, now George. Shoving his face to within inches of the monk’s, he said in a low-pitched voice, “Then tell me.”

“Irish folklore speaks of a beast born of the wild hunt.”

Frenzy knew of the wild hunt; it was the faeries’ equivalent of a wild, raucous party. A time when all fae, no matter how strong or weak, came together to revel in the wonder and splendor of faerie—when magic was powerful and potent. He’d run in the hunt for decades alongside his queen, reveling in the godlike power bestowed upon all during it.

“And what beast is this?”

“Its origins are hard to trace exactly, but the times I’ve seen it referred to in text, it’s only ever called by two names. The shadow, or
drochturach
.”

The wild hunt was a time of madness and chaos, birth, death, and magic. But Frenzy had never heard of this one.

“What does it do?”

“It finds and destroys seers. That is why they are so rare. The creature has been very thorough.”

“So it kills them? Slices off their heads?” He ran his hand across his neck.

“Much worse.” George swallowed convulsively. “It consumes them. Their physical bodies may die, but their souls stay forever trapped within it in a perpetual hell.”

Grimacing, Frenzy wondered how he’d never learned or heard of this creature—this killing shadow.

“Not only that, but from what I’ve gathered, each death makes it stronger.”

The possibilities were staggering. The potential for what it could be boggled his mind. “How many has it killed?”

George shrugged. “Stories vary. Some say ten, others three. I couldn’t say for certain. All I can say is this creature is dangerous and unpredictable.”

The pieces of the puzzle were slowly starting to come together: why Lise had been so insistent he keep Mila safe. Not because she had plans for Frenzy and Mila to become the next Romeo and Juliet, not even because she wanted to save her life. Mila was valuable. A rare treasure and a possession that even Lise would crave to own.

“Then I will just take her to faerie, keep her there for a—”

“No.” George shook his head hard, adjusting his glasses on the bridge of his nose again. “The wards of faerie will not protect against this creature. It was born in your lands; there is no place it cannot go. Your only hope of keeping her safe is running, keeping low, and never letting her tap into her powers.” He tapped his forehead. “Every time she uses them, it’s like a dinner bell to the monster. It can track her off them.”

Muscle in his jaw ticking, trying to make sense of all this information, Frenzy opened his mouth, ready to ask how the vampires were involved in all of this, when he heard a loud clatter and then a dull thud.

Turning on his heel, he spotted Mila slumped on the ground with the hilt of the knife poking up from her chest.