Life Cycle (2 page)

“Therian, not werecat! You know I hate that
term,” Greta hissed.

“Whether you like it or not, it’s
accurate.”

“Really, Anthony?” Charlee
said
, an irritated expression on her face
at her mate’s goading.

The vampire chuckled. “What? Is it my fault your
friend is so easy to mess with?”

He took a clear plastic sheet with writing on it and
placed it on the overhead projector. “I apologize for being so
vague as to the purpose of this meeting. Half of you are officially
enemies, but if I go to the Preternatural Council with this, my
vampires will all know, and I’m not prepared for it to go public
yet. We can go back to hating each other after we’ve eliminated the
threat.”

Anthony flipped on the light of the projector, and an
electric buzz filled the silence. “I had this letter reproduced
onto a transparency for our purposes. In case the context doesn’t
spell it out to you, we’ve been contacted by Jack the Ripper. He’s
still alive, and he’s one of us.”

“You couldn’t just use a computer program?”
the werewolf asked. Cole was the most tech-savvy of the
group.

“Don’t try, it won’t get you anywhere,”
Charlee said.

Dear Boss,

I’m back. You didn’t take the threat seriously last
time. Shame on you. Did you not understand my joke? It wasn’t for
the common people. It was for the others. Was “from Hell” not a big
enough clue? It’s where we all are, after all.

When I’ve killed the other cyclers, I’ll change the
world. There are 13 of us, a perfect coven. The first kill was an
accident, the second an experiment. Whitechapel was only three. You
were wrong. It wasn’t five. Those and others were copycats all
wanting Ripper’s glory.

Since then, there have been four more, but I’ve been
quiet as a mouse, giggling at my funny little games. With you in
power, I thought I’d make this interesting. Only three left to
kill; catch me first or Hell is mine.

Yours Truly,

The Cycler

Don’t mind the new trade name. The old one was
stale, and this one will give you something new to chew on. A new
mystery to solve. Do better this time. The stakes are higher
now.

P.S. Have fun when the human media gets this letter.
I’ll give you a head start. Tick, tock.

Cain read the letter on the projector once, twice,
and then a third time. “Why did he send this to you? And addressed
the same as the original letters? And what the fuck is a
cycler?”

Anthony seemed annoyed by Cain’s tone, but he
answered anyway. “I believe I’ve met him before. At previous points
in my history, I’ve chosen to blend with the humans, exploring
various ways of living to satisfy my boredom. During the
Whitechapel murders, I worked for the London police department
under an assumed name. But a few decades before that, I owned a
small fish shop. All my other employees called me by the name I was
using at that time, except one. He just called me “Boss.”

“There was something
off
about him. I
suspected he was a magic user, but it was more than that. The way
he gutted a fish… it was so clean. Surgical, almost. Even being a
vampire, this guy gave me the creeps. But I never realized he knew
I’d joined the London police or that the letters might be for me.
He must have discovered what I was. He was playing games then; now
I think he’s ready to end this. Which brings me to your other
question. Does anybody besides Hadrian know what a cycler
is?”

There was a consensus of head shaking.

“Father Hadrian, perhaps you could tell us
about your experience.”

The priest poured a glass of wine from a bottle on
the table and took a leisurely sip. “When I was turned in 1955, my
first meal was a blonde witch—maybe in her twenties. Her name was
Tamara. I left her corpse and went to hunt for more. When I
returned to the church, there was a young girl, maybe eleven or
twelve or so with the same blonde hair and the same eyes, wearing
the same dress as the woman I killed. She told me she was a cycler.
She was powerfully magical, much more so than I thought even a
woman in her twenties should be.”

The hair on the back of Cain’s neck stood up. There
were millions of women with that name, and probably plenty of
blonde witches with it as well, but his experience with Tam had
always been one of confusion over how she could take him down so
easily with a flick of her wrist.

The demon glanced at Anna, wondering if she’d made
the connection, but the idea that Father Hadrian was speaking about
the Tam they both knew hadn’t penetrated for Luc’s mate.

“Anna, do you understand yet why this involves
you?” Anthony asked.

Her eyes widened but she maintained her denial. “No…
I… Why would it involve me?”

The vampire laughed and shook his head. “I forget how
recently you were introduced to our world. Your friend has been
keeping a monumental secret from you. Tam is the woman Father
Hadrian met in the fifties.”

“That’s not possible. I mean… we grew up together.
Since we were kids…”

“Since you were about twelve?”

Anna shut her mouth and looked down at her hands.

“That’s what I thought. She must have died and
started a new life cycle right around that time. We’re still not
sure exactly what that means.”

The vampire king turned to the sorcerer and werecat.
“Dayne, Greta, did you do the research I requested?”

Dayne nodded. “I might have a theory. Since magic
users are human, we’ve always been a wild card. Up until now, we’ve
kept ourselves mostly secret from normal humans and considered
ourselves part of the preternatural world, but if Jack gets enough
power, he could sway magic users to his side. I think he wants to
expose the preternaturals and fight. He’s absorbing power from his
kills to make it easier.”

Greta interrupted. “I don’t think anyone considered
there could be magical and ritual significance to the way Jack the
Ripper was killing. The killings got more complex, but if he was
experimenting with the most potent methods for power absorption,
that would happen. He could become unstoppable if he kills the
other cyclers.”

“He’ll also be a true immortal,” Dayne said. “The
more power a magic user has, the more slowly they age. Considering
the nature of what he is already, my suspicion is that he’d become
unkillable. He wouldn’t have to start over in a younger human body
like what Hadrian observed with Tamara.”

Cain squeezed his eyes shut as images flashed in his
mind of Tam being ritualistically and gruesomely murdered. He
didn’t know why it pissed him off so much.

“Cain?” Anthony said.

The demon looked up, startled at being included in
the discussion. He tried to maintain a bored mask, but he couldn’t
keep the hot glow from his eyes, nor stop his hands from balling
into fists. “Yes?”

“We need you to protect the witch in your dimension.
It’s the only place we’re guaranteed she’ll be safe. If he kills
all the cyclers, and magic users come out of the closet, they’ll
band together, which risks your demons as well.”

Magic users were a demon’s one weakness. Demons were
exempt from death and could heal any injury—true immortals, but
they could still be trapped by a curse. They could still feel the
suffering of starvation. They could still be hurt.

All eyes were on him, waiting for his response. He
didn’t know how he felt about the little blonde witch, but if
anybody was killing her, it was going to be him, not some cheesy
magical serial killer with a world domination plot, and not one of
Anthony’s thugs, either.

“I’ll protect her,” Cain said, avoiding eye contact
with the others. This was killing the shit out of his reputation.
There were dramatic gasps and whispering, but he ignored it.

“Of course, killing her would be more expedient...
if you could find a way to make her stay dead.” The vampire king’s
tone was bland.

“No!” Anna said.

“Anthony!” Charlee said.

“I said I’d protect her,” the demon snarled, finally
meeting the eyes of everyone at the table. He dared them to start
something with him.

“We’ll also need you to get her to tell you
everything about being a cycler. We still don’t understand how or
why they exist or the extent of their powers,” Anthony said.

Cain growled. “Watch yourself, half-breed. I could
take you out without blinking. I’m sure you want to survive to be a
daddy.”

Charlee’s hand went protectively over her pregnant
belly, as if the child were in danger instead of the cocky vampire
standing beside the projector screen.

Anthony glared. “Don’t forget, I have magic users in
my employ. I have a coven of vampires that stretches across North
America and contacts with vampire leaders all over the world. Our
numbers are far greater than yours. Let’s not make this personal.
We’ve got a bigger enemy to fight.”

Cain was bored now. “Are we done here? I’ve got a
witch to collect.” He stood, already turning toward the door.

“Cain…” It was the first word Luc had spoken since
the demon had arrived. “Take Anna with you. She knows where the
witch lives.”

That
would
make things easier.

Luc’s mate recoiled, gripping tight to his arm.
“What? No! Come with me,” she said.

“I should stay for the rest of the meeting. My
brother can’t harm you, remember? You can’t hold a solid form
without me,” Luc said.

When she’d given her soul and became a demon’s mate,
she’d had to die first. It made her existence somewhat ghostly.
Only her mate could give her a full, solid form. Gradually, she
would gain the same powers as Luc, but it was a lengthy
process—centuries. Anna looked from Cain to Luc a couple of times.
She finally sighed and let go of her mate.

Cain headed for the door. He didn’t bother waiting
for her, assuming she’d follow. And if she didn’t, he’d just have
to find the infuriating witch on his own.

***

Tam had everything she was taking packed in several
bags: clothes, magical tools, books. All the things that meant
something to her. She stood in front of a large bird cage, a tear
tracking down her face.

Henry had died three years ago. He’d been her best
friend and sometimes lover for almost two centuries. A raven
therian, he’d always had her back. She’d come to think of him as
her familiar, and his blood was powerfully magical, second only to
cat blood. He’d taught her more about her gift for reading the
future than anybody else she’d encountered. She’d known he was
going to die at some point. She lost everybody. Always.

It’s time to let the cage
go.
Though it was her own mental
self-talk, she heard it in Henry’s voice instead of her own. But
whoever the message ultimately came from, it was right. Even with
magic, it would be too much to travel with, and all it could be now
was a painful reminder of her loss.

She wiped her face and put the cover over the cage,
taking one last look at the door they’d made for him to easily open
so he could come and go as he wished. He’d preferred being in his
bird form when he needed to think, and it was always handy to shift
to it when people came over.

Tam turned back to the piles of bags and boxes in the
middle of her room and created a circle of salt. She lit candles at
the four directional points and sat in the middle with her spell
book open. Even with her power, she wasn’t sure she had the energy
to perform this spell alone, but she had to try. For all the flashy
magic she could do by herself at her age, changing the molecular
structure of several bags of her stuff was still a tall order.

She closed her eyes and focused, then raised her arms
and intoned the chant over and over until she crumpled to the floor
and everything went dark.

The raven flew a couple of times around her. His
shrill call was like laughter. Henry? He landed on the ground at
her feet, then shifted into his human form, the call turning into a
human laugh.

“
Tam, I swear, what is wrong with you? You should
have called the coven to do that spell. At least this gives me a
chance to talk to you.”

“
I can’t involve them. It’s too dangerous. Is
this really you? Or is it a dream?”

“
Yes,” he said enigmatically, a twinkle in his
eye.

“
I miss you.”

He reached out, the back of his hand brushing her
cheek. “I’m always watching out for you. You know that.”

“
Are you coming back?” She was asking if he
planned to reincarnate.

“
At some point.” He hesitated. “I’m with my soul
mate right now. We have limits here, but we still don’t want to be
separated.”

“
That’s understandable. And I’m glad you’re with
her.” And she was. Though they’d had their occasional fling, it had
been friends with benefits with Henry. Besides Anna, he was her
best friend. But they’d both known their love wasn’t that kind of
love. “I love you...” she said.

He smirked and finished her sentence “... but not
that way. Right back at ya.”

He pulled her into a hug and whispered in her ear.
“We’ll meet again, but you may have to find me and remind me, I
don’t know how many memories I can pull through.” He turned
serious. “Tam, listen to me. Don’t leave the house. Wait. He’s
coming.”

She pulled away, panic gripping her. “Jack? If
Jack’s coming, why would I wait?”

“
No. Someone else. Follow your heart.”

“
What does that mean? Stop speaking in
riddles.”