Traitor (3 page)

“I’m ready to
fight
,” I insisted. “I don’t know how to find lost souls or how to help them. All I can do is kill. That’s what’s going to win us this war.” I let them see my fangs to remind them of my heritage.

Anka laughed. “You saw Mrs. Yaga’s true face, Ava. You know the monster my mother was. Don’t tell me what we were born to be. You’ve spent your entire life fighting against that. The lost souls will find you. Emmett, Carl, Esther, even Val and Leah. They’ve all found you. That’s how it works.”

“I wasted my time fighting against what I was born to be,” I snapped, “because there’s only darkness in me, and the only time I feel alive is when I send the light away. I can never be neutral. I’m a monster, and I think like one.”

They didn’t follow me when I stalked away. A weight had lifted from my shoulders when the truth finally left my lips. I had seen
my
true face, and it was something to fear.

I rapped on the bookshop door five times, and Eddie opened it cautiously.

“Locking your door these days?” I shuffled my feet as he glanced down the empty street.

“It’s a symbol of safety,” he replied. “Were you seen?”

I shook my head. “Hurry up and let me in. It’s cold, and we need to talk before anyone else arrives.”

Sighing, he let me inside the dimly lit room. I inhaled the familiar scents of magic—freshly doused matches and sea salt. That tinge of darkness I had recently been sensing was absent.

I noticed a bead of sweat running down Eddie’s temple. “If
you’re
stressed, then
I
need to worry.”

He ran his hands through his ginger hair. He needed a haircut, and heavy bags cradled his blue eyes. I had never seen Eddie Brogan, Keeper of Gods, in such poor shape.

“I’m not stressed. I’m busy,” he said. “While you children run around making friends, I have to ensure there are no traitors in our midst. And I need to prepare for the next step, despite your unnecessary reluctance, Ava.”

I shrugged. His next step likely involved taking advantage of magical children. I was the one who would stop him, whether he realised it or not. I took a seat on his counter, much to his chagrin.

“What’s today’s problem?” he asked.

“Carl and I have been thinking,” I said.

He tutted. “A dangerous hobby, to be sure.”

Grinning, I swung my legs so my heels kicked solid wood. “We were talking, and we’ve decided we’re nervous about the fact that roughly half of the Council and their consultants are supposed to be on our team. Doesn’t that kind of defeat the purpose? And how do we know who we can trust anyway?”

He wiped his brow with the back of his hand. “It’s not half. And not all will last until the end. Trust me on that.”

“So you’re keeping secrets again? How are we supposed to work together if I don’t even know the plan?”

He approached me slowly. The bookshelves rattled, but nothing fell, so he was containing his anger. For the moment. “The only one on the Council who is on our side is Gabe, and that was because of
your
plans. I would never in a million years have taken him on board. Of the consultants, one hates your guts, one has gone missing, and I and the other two are glad for a chance to rise in power. Elathan is a gift, given his history with the Council, and
Marina
is far more powerful than even you can imagine. I have great uses in mind for her. More importantly, neither of them care enough about you to want you dead.” He paused and kept a stern eye on me. “And don’t pretend I’m the only one keeping secrets here, pet.” His expression softened. “You look exhausted. Are you keeping well?”

Abruptly his mood had changed, and we were back to him talking to me in a doting tone of voice—a
fatherly
tone of voice. I touched the cross he had once given me, unable to imagine how everything would end. No matter what he did wrong, Eddie was one of the first supernatural people to assist me. He had helped me control my thirst when it had been more of a mental attack than anything else. I still owed him favours, and he hadn’t collected. Not yet.

One more thing still bothered me: The warning Maeve had sent to me through Emmett that Eddie was seeking another like me. But why?

“I’m fine.” I inched away from him, chilled all over again.

“And how is everyone your way?” he asked. “Still getting along?”

“As well as can be expected. We lost a few along the way. Not everyone wants to be part of a movement. But you were right about what we’ve gained; there are so many disgruntled people in this country right now.”

“And the tattooist? Has she been tracked down yet?”

I rubbed my temples. To my dismay, Carl and Val had recently teamed up in an attempt to find Raven, a one-time inmate of the slave market and someone who could possibly have information on the tattooed assassins. Both my friends had magical tattoos. They believed they would find the right information eventually, but all of their leads had so far resulted in dead ends.

“No sign yet,” I said. “She may have left the country, or she could be in hiding. The tattoos might not even be her work.”

“She could be dead.”

I winced. I had made the mistake of trying to suggest the same thing to Val.

He peered at me. “You look troubled. Is there something I should know?”

“Just thinking about where we go from here.” Mrs. Yaga’s will was at the forefront of my thoughts, but I frowned as another problem came to mind. “The thing is, not everyone seems to want to follow my lead. I don’t know how to make them trust me.”

“You don’t need their trust. You need their respect.” His tone chilled. “You need to let go of your emotions and teach them to obey.”

The door rattled as somebody knocked five times. Eddie froze, only relaxing when I nodded.

“Open it,” I said. “It’s them.”

He did, allowing Garda Shay Whelan and Ben O’Halloran, aka Moses, to step inside. Moses held his hands behind his back.

I frowned. “You’ve got to stop handcuffing him, Shay.”

Shay gave me a sweet half-smile. “Best way to take him from the flats without drawing the wrong attention. The lads at the station are covering for me.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t explain why he’s still handcuffed,” I said.

The sullen look on Moses’s face turned into a delighted grin. “I caught him in the balls when he dragged me out.”

Shay winced before pushing Moses forward. “Don’t remind me,” he said as he unlocked the cuffs. “Unless you don’t want a lift home.”

Moses wrapped his arm around Shay’s shoulders, barely able to reach. “Me buddy, me pal.” Moses was everything I didn’t like in a person, and yet I couldn’t help liking him. He had lost some weight since the attack on his community, and he wore his scars like badges of honour, but his appetite for change—and vengeance—had only increased. His neighbourhood was owned by supernaturals who hadn’t bothered to help when the beasts came, and he wanted payback.

Shay stepped toward me, a look I didn’t want to see on his face. “How are you doing? Have you heard from him recently?”

I slid off the counter and walked away. I didn’t want to talk about Peter or Emmett. I didn’t want anyone to know how I grieved for the loss every time I was alone. I didn’t want to talk about the way I was angry at what had been given and then taken away. The taste of family had only fed my hunger, and I had to put that feeling aside to carry on with the very actions that had driven that family away.

And I was still mad at Shay for acting as though I were some kind of filthy dirt-eating monster when he’d learned the truth about me. Everything else felt like an apology I didn’t want.

“Ava,” he said under his breath.

Ignoring him, I nodded at Eddie.

“Progress so far has been smooth,” Eddie said in a self-satisfied tone of voice. “There’s more to do, but in the time we’ve been given, we’ve all moved swiftly. Erossi has been struggling to deal with the negative PR, and we have been reeling in sympathisers, one soul at a time.”

I shivered at the wording, but he didn’t seem to notice.

“Both the criminal element and the police force have been affected by someone powerful. If you both can work toward discovering who exactly is pulling the strings, then we’re one step closer to finding out where to strike first. If we take the head, the body will be easy to knock down. And if… no,
when
we rise amongst the rubble and major elements from the human communities stand by our side, the adjustments will be far easier to make.”

“There’s been some bad press,” Shay said. “But people are still too scared to make a stand. Although, human politics have come into play. That could be a game-changer.”

Eddie nodded. “As long as humans know there’s an alternative. As long as they know there are rebels willing to fight for them, you would be surprised at what we can achieve. Historically, the Irish have been the underdogs, always fighting battles they cannot possibly win, and yet refusing to lie down and die. This time, we have the chance to win. We have the chance to do things the right way. To bring the country to the state it belongs in, the way past wars and martyrs intended.”

“And we don’t have to destroy the country to do it,” I reminded him, thinking of the witch Marina’s past ideas of bombing cities with black magic just to win a battle. We needed to win the war, but we needed a country left to win it for.

“There’s no reason for destruction as of yet,” Eddie said.

“I don’t know how much digging I’ll have to do,” Moses said. “We’re trying our best, but it’s risky. I’m not sure any of my contacts know how high up this goes.”

“Use the brethni,” Eddie said. “Ava tells me they have a hive mind. If one breaks ranks, gets caught, and takes the blame to save the others, I believe they will see it as a worthwhile sacrifice.”

“Maybe I don’t see it that way,” Moses said sharply. The brethni had helped save his community. I was glad he had their backs.

“Ask them for suggestions,” I said. “Tell them what you need and see if they can come up with an alternative solution to the problem. It’s worth a try.”

He nodded and dug into his pocket.

Eddie shook his head. “Not in here. No smoke.”

Sighing, Moses searched in his other pocket and pulled out a packet of chewing gum instead.

“We’ve already started looking into this,” Shay said. “It’s hard to find new additions to the team, given we don’t know who’s in whose pockets, but the gang who were attacked in the church are all over this. Most of them are part of the new initiative. We’re cooperating with the Council for now, but we’ve taken this personally. We won’t stop until we root out the truth. It’s going to take more time, but we’re in a good position to find out who exactly is in control of the criminals because they’re all working together to keep people like Moses here out of jail. Even if we don’t get to the top, we’re slowly figuring out who exactly is being controlled, so when the time comes, we’ll know who can’t be trusted.”

That was the tough part, finding all of the weeds so we would know what we needed to destroy.

“Excellent,” Eddie said softly. “There will be sacrifices by the end, but all of the pieces will land as they should.”

“We’re not sacrificing people,” I said.

He waved a hand as if to say, “You women,” and I felt that urge deep in my gut again—a gnawing, biting sense of violent rage. Some days, I believed there were worse things than being a victim, but other days, I didn’t care. I wasn’t sure what I thought of the person I was suddenly becoming.

“It’s time for the humans to leave,” Eddie said, cocking his head to the side as if he were listening to something. “They’ve stayed too long already.”

Moses nodded at me and went outside, but Shay lingered at the door when I started to close it after them.

“Ava, wait,” he said in a low, urgent voice. “Can I see you? I need to talk… to explain—”

“No.” I shut the door firmly in his face.

“Don’t make enemies of our allies,” Eddie said.

“Personal issues can’t come into this. You taught me that.”

He observed me steadily. “Very well. I hope you know what you’re doing.”

I widened my eyes. “When has that ever happened?”

He grinned then, and the tension left my shoulders. I was tired of being on edge around Eddie. He couldn’t be worse than the alternative, no matter how dark and sticky the stains on his soul were.

“None of this matters if Fionnuala allies herself with bigger powers than us,” I said.

“You mean if the son marries into more power,” he said with a strange smile. “That could change the game, but you forget all of those remarkable children just waiting to be wielded like weapons.”

“Eddie, I—”

“We need power, Ava, not just small-time criminals and Garda Sergeants. Even if the Garda Sergeants do come from special places.” He smiled again, his eyes going elsewhere, and it did
not
make me comfortable. I hoped he didn’t have plans for Shay, too, especially since I wasn’t particularly attracted to Shay’s blood—a sure sign that his bloodline held the magical protection once freely given by gods.

Eddie’s eyes narrowed. “You should have brought Val.”

“Need her to protect the group.” She didn’t have to be there every night, but I didn’t want her too close to Eddie in case he got any ideas about her usefulness.

“So be it. There will be other times. It seems the werewolves did a decent job of running the vampires out of the
UK
,” he said lightly. “There will be a lot of vampires looking for somewhere to go. For someone to blame.”

“No,” I said firmly.

“You can’t pick and choose based on your past, and it’s not your job to enforce morality. It’s not the fault of every vampire that your family was destroyed by one, and revenge won’t make you happy.”

I took a step toward the door. “I’m going. I have stuff to do.”

“Of course you do,” he said. “But be ready. The time to act may arrive sooner than you think. And play nice with the gardaí. We’ll need them.”