Chapter Fifteen
Nicole
A FINE LAYER OF MARBLE DUST PAINTED NICOLE’S BARE FEET as she stood staring up at the broken window in the studio of Burghley House. It sparkled dangerously with morning light, sun beaming in over the mess of rubble below.
Her father passed her a steaming mug of coffee.
Evidently, the Ban-Sìth’s scream hadn’t just destroyed the studio and knocked out Elisabetta.
‘I’ll have to apologise again to Verin,’ she said, relishing the hot porcelain against her fingers.
Her father huffed a quiet laugh. ‘Don’t worry. He’s a patron of craftsmen and artists, has restorers on speed dial and I’ve offered to help pay, which he already refused.’
Nicole nodded distantly, but it wasn’t just the destruction of historic artworks and glass that twisted her stomach.
‘I should have tried to resist killing her,’ Nicole said. She knew it was impossible, not with the potency of the kill scent. But, ‘She was hurting, she—’
‘She wanted you dead, Nikki,’ her father said firmly. ‘Whatever her motive for tracking you down, she planned to resolve that with murder, just as the Baobhan Sìth had.’
Nicole shook her head. ‘I just didn’t think creatures would come for me. They’re supposed to be out there, hunting innocent people, and I’m supposed to hunt them. Stop them before they can do anything. It’s supposed to be—’
‘Simple,’ her father said.
Nicole’s chest sank with an exhale. ‘Yes.’ She took a hot sip to swallow the knot in her throat.
Her father sighed. ‘Sweetheart, sometimes we have to do things that make us question ourselves, so we can be absolutely certain of who we are, and what we stand for.’
She glanced at him, at the familiar planes of his face; the features Bells and Dylan shared, like they’d been sketched in his image.
After everything that had happened recently, she couldn’t keep the tension inside any longer.
She’d put the questions aside to try and focus on the rest of this quest, but now they had Elisabetta, she needed to know.
‘Dad, we need to talk about what happened in Estwood. About what you did in the woods—’
A throat cleared across the hall, and Nicole twisted to see Verin. ‘As much as I hate to intrude on a father–daughter moment,’ the Vampire said, ‘you asked me to come and get you the moment Elisabetta was ready.’
According to Nicole’s research, Elisabetta Sirani had been born in 1638, which meant she was some kind of supernatural. But Nicole couldn’t figure out what.
Her mother’s notes had made no mention, and the painter gave off no overwhelming signs.
She wasn’t drenched in the loamy perfume of a Nymph, nor the earthy scent of a Golem.
She didn’t feel particularly supernatural either, other than emanating calm and an agelessness that felt like history itself.
Thankfully, there was no subtle sense of danger.
Elisabetta sat quietly across from them in the sitting area of Verin’s blood library.
The square of plush couches was arranged beside an unlit fireplace and a low coffee table Dylan was filling with sandwiches, scones, crisp salads, and a pot of fragrant tea that Elisabetta breathed in gratefully before pouring a cup.
In the light of morning, Nicole could appreciate the painter’s features better: her soft face and light brown hair. There was a subtle arch to her nose when she turned which Nicole had memorised from the artist’s self-portraits.
She looked better and the cut at the side of her head had stopped bleeding. There was a slight flush in her pale cheeks which could have been from the head wound, or perhaps the mysterious location she’d been painting in.
Her round eyes, which observed quickly and deeply, landed on Nicole.
‘What are you? If you don’t mind sharing,’ Nicole asked as the painter put down the teapot.
‘Ah, that has no clear answer, I’m afraid.
’ She hadn’t lost her Italian accent despite the centuries.
‘Your mother saved my life. A servant, or perhaps a rival male artist, had been poisoning me slowly.
Freya – she went by a different name then – was meeting with me for a commission.
She smelled the poisoned wine and slashed it out of my hands before I could take another sip.
‘She offered me a deal: she would help me fake my death and escape, if I painted something for her when the time was right.
‘I realised, however, that I’d stopped ageing shortly after. Some artists become immortal through their art and I think that happened to me. Later, we were termed Grays.’
A peal of pure fascination rang in Nicole’s mind. ‘Like Dorian Gray?’
The painter smiled slightly. ‘Yes. It’s rare for women and anyone that went against the grain to become Grays, because the immortality comes from the renown of our paintings and so few of us are known.
But there are other complex reasons why we turn immortal and they’re not always the same.
As long as people know of our work, it keeps us alive.
Mine is not so well known, but a sculpture was made of me at my “death” by the people of Bologna and we think that was what immortalised me. ’
Had the fact Nicole’s family kept, and loved, the portrait Elisabetta had done of her mother added to the painter’s immortality?
‘It took several hundred years for Freya to come back and ask me to fulfil that debt. By that point I was in England, helping a group of women begin underground painting lessons. If you can believe it, the rules around women painting had barely changed in four hundred years.’ She made an unamused sound that had a surprising roughness to it, as if her voice was still affected by the poisoning.
‘That was where she found me to paint her portrait. But I always suspected that wouldn’t be the end of it. ’
Nicole had to force herself not to ask about the rest of Elisabetta’s history: being a court painter in the 1600s as a woman, what other Grays might be out there—
‘My wife left us a note,’ her father cut in, ‘saying that she hid her last lead with you.’
The painter looked between them. ‘Are you certain you wish to know?’
Bells glanced at Nicole with concerned eyes, pinching a finger sandwich so tightly it had little marks all over it.
Nicole nodded. ‘Yes. Anything you can tell us could change everything.’
After all they’d learned in Estwood, there was no way they could stop now. But finally facing the next step made her inexplicably nervous.
She looked to her family. Dylan hadn’t relaxed the entire time.
He was so rigid on the edge of the couch to Bells’ left, Nicole was mildly concerned.
His hand had formed a slight fist, his forearm as tense as the sculptures in the now-ruined studio.
Her father sat to her right, wired with anticipation – finally faced with one more piece of the woman he loved.
Verin watched patiently beside a grand piano.
Nicole took a breath. They were together, they were safe. They could face what came next. So she nodded again.
‘She didn’t tell me everything. That wasn’t her way,’ Elisabetta said.
Their father made a small noise of agreement.
‘But she asked me to use blood in the portrait. I made it into a pigment for the lips and a tiny amount in each eye, along with gold leaf. Her eyes always had such a darkness, but that Empyrean flicker was there, too.’
Elisabetta pulled out something she’d tucked between the cushions at her side. ‘This is the last of it.’
The painter placed the velvet-lined box on the low marble table between them and opened it. Inside were old-looking jars and vials of—
‘Pigments,’ Nicole realised.
‘This is it,’ Elisabetta said, showing them a tiny vial no bigger than the tip of her pinkie finger. Inside looked to be the very last essence of a red pigment.
‘The blood?’ Bells asked, a frown drawing her doe-coloured brows together as she scooted to the edge of her seat.
After Estwood, Nicole had learned that substances from creatures could be used – for good or ill – in, or on, paintings. But to use blood as the paint, thus hiding its true nature …
‘What type of blood is it, my dear?’ Verin asked. ‘It’s been driving me mad for days.’
‘I do not know. All I know is that it is more precious than every treasure of every empire that has ever been, or ever will be.’
Dylan’s brows rose, Bells’ dropped in thought, and Nicole’s fascination increased a hundredfold. She looked down at the tiny vial.
Verin began pacing. ‘I must resist tasting it, even though I think it would give me a better idea. Freya had many little tricks up her sleeve. It could kill me instantaneously, or give me a slow, horrible death …’
Bells looked up, alarmed. ‘It could?’
‘Well, even before she met your father’ – Verin gave him a pointed look – ‘she was adept at potions and poisons, especially sleeping draughts. Made me one a time or two. Worked like a charm.’
Dylan leaned closer. ‘If it’s blood and was painted into a portrait over a hundred years ago, how has it survived all this time?’
‘In normal circumstances,’ Verin answered absently, ‘human blood or bloodstains don’t keep their reddish colour thanks to interference from sunlight. The blood turns grey as it desiccates.
‘Non-human blood, however, acts a little differently. An immortal’s blood can last for a lot longer, even though it will still disappear eventually. The only blood I know of that can survive the test of time like this is Empyreal blood. But, over a hundred years by itself? Unlikely.’
‘So, it’s most likely to be an Empyreal’s blood, then?’ Nicole asked.
Verin shook his head slowly, mesmerised. ‘I’ve tasted Empyreal blood and this is not it. But I will find out. I’ll just have to run some more tests. Its scent has been smothered by the other agents and varnish. Perhaps to hide what it is.’
‘What does this have to do with the artefacts Mum mentioned?’ Dylan asked, rubbing his temple.
Right, the three ‘goddess-blessed’ items capable of destroying the Wake …
‘Blood could have been involved in making them,’ their father mused. ‘To distinguish them somehow, or give them some sort of signature?’
‘How would that keep blood fresh, though?’ Bells asked. ‘Wouldn’t something happen to it after all those years?’
Verin nodded. ‘Certain supernaturals managed to find ways to keep it fresh. The Druids being the first.’
‘This was all your mother gave me of it,’ Elisabetta said. ‘She was working with a Druid at the time, perhaps they stabilised it—’
‘A Druid?’ Nicole interrupted, intrigued. ‘A Druid had still been alive when you painted this?’
She thought they had all been slaughtered in Kyan’s time.
‘Did you see them?’ Nicole added.
Elisabetta nodded softly. ‘I only saw her briefly.’
Her.
Nicole thought of the emerald-and-white-garbed woman in the edge of the vision, but she hadn’t Seen anything else. No hair colour or facial features.
‘She said some of the blood had been stolen from her people thousands of years ago,’ Elisabetta continued. ‘The items Freya sought were deemed goddess-blessed due to this blood, hidden inside them, or cast upon them.’
Nicole knew the Morrígan – the goddess that supposedly created Empyreals – was the Irish Goddess of War, Death, and Fate, but was that the reason blood was ‘blessed’?
Because blood was spilled in war, or death?
‘So, there’s blood in each of these items?’ Dylan asked tightly, as if unsure whether to be disturbed or not.
The painter nodded. ‘Freya asked me to use the blood to craft a portrait of her, making it “goddess-blessed”. I had to figure out through much trial and error how to stabilise it in pigment form, and make sure that it was able to be used again once scraped out of the painting.’
Used?
‘Why didn’t she tell us in the Dante painting that her portrait was one of these special items?’ Nicole asked. ‘That we had it all this time?’
‘She didn’t want to reveal everything in one clue. The Wake have nearly found her many times before. She feared them getting their hands on even a single clue, so kept them vague enough that someone had to figure out everything and find all the right people and items to be worthy of the truth.’
‘But what are we supposed to do with it?’ Dylan asked.
‘And how would this help us destroy the Wake?’ Nicole mused. ‘Is it a poison? Or is there some other clue in the painting and the blood is a marker to identify this artwork? Then, by diving into its history, the answer can be revealed? Or do we simply need to know whose blood it is?’
Perhaps that would only be clear when they found the next two items.
But they had the painting right here … which meant the blood itself was the clue. And if Elisabetta didn’t know what it meant or what creature it was from, they needed someone who did.
Part of Nicole thrilled at the idea of learning more about all of this, but another wilted. More clues? Where were the answers? What was the plan?
Elisabetta didn’t seem to know, either.
Which meant their hopes rested with Verin.
‘Mum said there were three items,’ Nicole said instead. ‘A painting, an artefact, and “something of divine provenance”. Do you know anything about the others?’
‘Ah, sì. She had located the artefact but hid its information with another source.’
‘Who?’ Dylan asked.
‘She’s another artistic creature, a Muse featured in much of the Pre-Raph—’
An electronic alarm interrupted them that jarred Nicole’s instincts like a physical attack. Verin went to investigate a small, sleek screen in his bookshelves, which revealed a security system.
Everyone paused.
‘I’m going to need you four to get into the other wing immediately and not come out until I come and collect you,’ Verin said. ‘Elisabetta, you should be safe in your studio.’
Her father rose. ‘What’s happening?’
Verin’s lips lifted in a pained, bitter smile. ‘It seems the Wake have decided to pay me a visit.’
Nicole’s entire world shrank to the three people she loved most, the portrait of her mother, and the tiny vial of mysterious blood that could be the key to unravelling this entire conspiracy.
All laid out in this room like a damning collection for the Wake to steal in one cursed moment.
‘Where’s the Muse?’ Nicole asked Elisabetta.
‘She’s hidden in the city of the mythical Liver Bird.’
Mentally, Nicole flicked through her mother’s bestiaries until the answer scrawled across her mind like cursive, liquid gold.
Liverpool.
She launched for her sister’s hand and grabbed the portrait as Dylan grabbed the blood vial.
Then, knowing her father and brother would follow, Nicole sprinted from Verin’s blood library and the reeling immortal painter.