Chapter Three #2
One of the last times he’d used that ancient Irish writing system had been during the events of the Táin, and the battle that had killed not just his Druid family, but a piece of him as well.
After he’d joined the Wake, he’d used the Latin he’d been taught as the king’s nephew.
Once in Rome, he’d only ever written in ogam as a form of code.
Kyan forced himself to swallow as his eyes ran over the linear language.
Now, ogam was mainly found on a scarce selection of stone monuments. Once, it had been a part of a living, breathing world. His world.
A skitter sharpened his senses and shut out the overpowering scent of blood as Kyan’s attention snapped to the creature crawling through the shadows. He wasn’t surprised at the sight of a scavenger, but this—
Kyan scowled as a Vampire skirted the strong beams of golden daylight.
It was feral, its eyes wild and blood-crazed. A flash of surprise barely made it through Kyan’s mind as the Vampire darted towards him, swift as death.
The kill scent immediately permeated the space, and Kyan’s transformation was instantaneous.
It ripped something deep from his stomach, as if folding his body in on itself.
Hot strength surged as his bones groaned and lengthened.
Horns broke through his scalp and spiralled up through his dark hair, the weight of them supported by new muscle threading down his neck and shoulders.
His skin crackled and rustled, filling the air with the essence of moss and petrichor.
For a moment, he felt the ghost of his lost torc as a weight around his neck. Then the floor was dipping away as he grew upwards another two feet, his clothes tearing slightly.
The Vampire dived and Kyan’s new arm scythed up, transforming into a sharp, wooden spear, the bones merging and elongating into a lethal point that impaled the Vampire’s chest with a great crack. The creature slid closer to Kyan’s face, its fanged jaw unhinged and screaming.
Its mouth was bloodied, as if it had scrabbled in the blood before Kyan arrived. But what knifed through the moment was the Vampire’s double row of teeth.
In all his years hunting, he’d never seen this.
When it stilled, Kyan threw the Vampire down, gravity ripping it from his wooden arm. Dust spiralled up like wisps of magic, and in the great crimson pool, he saw himself transformed.
There were many woodland creatures, but few like this. He was either a Leshy – a Slavic forest spirit – or a Cernunnii – those thought to be descended from the Celtic Cernunnos, Lord of Wild Things. Seeing the horn-like antlers and feeling the ghost of a torc, he deduced the Cernunnii.
With the stop of his prey’s heart, Kyan’s Empyrean powers smoothly spiralled back into his core, taking with them anything gifted for the kill.
Immediately, the antler-like horns felt loose and his arm began to transform back, bark cracking that he brushed off like shavings. He reached up to make sure there wasn’t actually a torc around his throat.
Even after all this time, the slaking off of a transformation could make his skin crawl.
But it was chased with the satisfaction of a swiftly completed kill, even if it only reminded him of the ways he’d fucked up in Estwood. He’d let Lynch mess with his head, let himself be so overwhelmed by feeling for Nicole that Lynch had got too close to her. So close she had to transform—
That dangerous, icy fury returned.
His guilt over that night had become almost smothering during their time apart. He hadn’t been quick enough, strong enough, to rip that piece of crystal out of his gut and transform in her stead. No, she’d fought off two twisted creatures. They broke her leg, her ribs, stabbed her—
The knot in his chest tightened enough to make him breathless. He scrunched his eyes shut.
He was proud of her. Proud of her skills. Fascinated to meet someone like him, with all her protective urges and scholar’s fascination.
But he needed something to show for this time away. Wanted the Wake beheaded on a platter when the next binding rolled around, especially before they could enact their plan of somehow summoning the Wild Hunt and instigating a Dark Age. That, Kyan couldn’t allow.
And from what he’d seen of the ogam message, this macabre murder might be linked to it.
Kyan walked back to the bloodied message, wiping his hand of the Vampire’s blood before pulling out his phone and snapping a picture.
His memory was blurry on the translation, but he knew who would be able to read it.
Whoever had written this, though, was either as old as Kyan, or didn’t know what the hell they were dabbling in.
He didn’t know which was more concerning.
Kyan turned to inspect the dead Vampire.
Being feral was an uncommon thing in its species nowadays.
Vampires had plenty of access to supernatural blood banks and never needed as much as humans imagined in their books and shows, either.
To act this way didn’t make sense. And neither did the double row of fangs.
If this was a result of the Wake’s experiments, he didn’t want them taking the whole creature and burning the evidence.
He needed proof.
Kyan squatted beside it, his torn jeans creaking and flecked with blood. He grabbed the creature’s chilled jaw and, with some strain, ripped free one of the secondary fangs. It came away with a grisly crack and scythe of bloodied bone.
He tore a piece of the Vampire’s shirt to wrap up the fang, then dialled the Wake’s collection number, reserved for the occasions when carrying a body would get him noticed. Usually, they arrived quickly, so he headed back out into the city and strode several streets back to get his car.
Inside the warm interior, he cleaned his hands with sanitising wipes from his hunting bag, then opened up the glove box to retrieve Nicole’s hair tie and the ancient bracelet he wore, putting them back on.
The day Nicole’s family had left Estwood, he’d found the hair tie on her bedside table and kept it, even though it damn near cut off his circulation.
His finger ran back and forth beneath it, before driving back to the warehouse.
Keeping a distance, he parked within view.
For some reason, the collection crew took nearly two hours.
With all the blood in that warehouse, it heightened the chances of drawing more creatures and he was about to call the Wake again when the van finally arrived. He waited until they came back out, then followed at a distance.
It was likely they’d just take the supernatural body to one of the Wake’s morgues.
They had a myriad of ways to safely destroy supernatural corpses so humans didn’t find them.
But if they were experimenting on creatures the way Nicole had seen, the way they had with Lynch, then studying or using the bodies of deceased supernaturals would be invaluable.
But when the van arrived at its location Kyan’s brain stalled, and that trickle of instinct morphed into disbelief and a low, burning outrage.
Here? They’d chosen here?
It wasn’t possible. It was so visible. And what it stood for …
He’d assumed for months that their labs would be in some hidden location, but he’d forgotten the key ability of the Wake: to twist the known. To make you think you were safe, whilst using that control to keep you where they wanted you.
Kyan pulled out his phone and called the only person he knew who could still read ogam.
‘I need to speak to you.’
‘Always with the pleasantries,’ Callum drawled.
Kyan couldn’t risk telling him what he suspected now, not if there was an Empyreal in their ranks they couldn’t trust. Everything had been smooth sailing after his debriefing from the Estwood mission, to the degree he was worried it was too smooth.
But then, that was why he and Nicole had done the first of a trio of binding ceremonies: so he could lie about everything that happened. Their plan had worked thus far.
So, Kyan drove away from the building that stood for justice and righteousness. The criminal courts used by both humans and supernaturals, and likely the location of a secret facility that spat in the face of everything Kyan had once thought the Wake stood for.
The Old Bailey.