Page 18

Sebastián

I scrolled through the barrage of messages I’d sent Flynn. The screen’s blue light cast shadows across my desk, matching my darkening mood.

Maxwell’s call still rang in my ears—his clipped tone describing how Rory had waltzed into the morgue with Flynn in tow. That audacious little wolf. I’d explicitly told him to keep Flynn away from anything he shouldn’t see or hear. A corpse definitely qualified.

Three dots appeared, disappeared, then appeared again. Then nothing. The conversation was obviously closed.

So why was I still staring at the screen like I was desperate for one more sentence?

I shoved the phone into my coat pocket. I needed to focus on actual work, not obsess over Flynn. He was with Rory. Despite his many, many faults, Rory wouldn’t let anything happen to him.

Kit was waiting for me by the bookcase, ready to accompany me to the family of the woman in Maxwell’s morgue.

“Did you see my message about the bus?” Kit asked, adjusting his denim jacket.

I grunted, grabbing my umbrella from its stand. “It will beat an hour’s walk in the sun.”

The sun blazed through the hotel’s grimy windows, mocking my existence. Even in autumn, its rays still burned my sensitive skin. Not enough to kill me, but enough to make me wish I could throttle whatever cosmic force decided vampires should be allergic to sunlight .

At least my coat didn’t draw strange looks in October. The same couldn’t be said for the umbrella on this cloudless day, but I’d learned to ignore the stares.

The bus journey stretched into an endless parade of stopping and starting, packed with an overwhelming number of people. I’d witnessed countless innovations in human transport, yet somehow we’d ended up here—still cramming ourselves into mobile metal boxes like sardines.

“Your delightful brother has been up to mischief this morning.”

Kit scoffed. “So I heard. He left me a ten-minute voice message ranting about his favourite detective. Accidentally slipped in that he’d brought Flynn in to see the body. He’s a prat. Sorry, boss.”

“Don’t apologise for him.”

When Rory had followed Kit to London, Kit had warned me against giving him a place at Killigrew Street. He was too young, too impulsive. But I could also see that look in his eye—the worried brother look. The worried brother who would secretly be relieved at having Rory under his nose each day.

A few years later, Rory was less young, but no less impulsive.

The bus jolted to another stop. A wave of perfume from a new passenger made my nose twitch.

“One day he’ll learn that actions have consequences,” I said.

“And I can only hope I’m there to see it.” Kit’s laugh was tinged with warmth. “I’ll take a picture for our wall.”

The slightest twinge of longing shot through me, razor sharp. The brothers might scrap tooth and nail—Kit’s exasperated growls a daily symphony in the halls of Killigrew Street Hotel—but their unwavering loyalty remained as constant as the moon that ruled them.

How nice it must be, I mused bitterly, to have someone in your life who remained steadfast, ready to catch you when you fell. The thought carried the weight of five hundred years of watching families grow old and fade. Of a sister’s face growing increasingly distorted by time and guilt.

I pushed Magdalena’s image far from my mind .

Not presently, thank you very much.

I still had a handful of days before October 31st, when it was time to open my chest once again. The stack of leather-bound journals from my human life sat there, waiting. My stomach twisted at the thought of those yellowed pages, filled with a handwriting I barely recognised as my own.

Every ten years, on the anniversary of my sister’s death, I forced myself to reread them, to re-solidify the memories of that distant time.

By this point in the cycle, they were hazy, smoke-like things, impressions of images rather than sharp-edged certainties.

Only the guilt remained constant, a lead weight in my chest that grew heavier with each passing century.

Kit and I finally reached our stop, then a short walk later, a quiet suburban street. Identical semi-detached houses lined both sides. Number 47 had a collection of wind chimes hanging from a twisted apple tree, their gentle tinkling at odds with the gravity of our visit.

I closed my umbrella as we stepped into the shade of the porch. Kit’s knuckles rapped against the red painted door, and a middle-aged man opened it, his eyes puffy and red-rimmed.

“Mr Ashworth.” Sarah’s—the dead woman’s—husband. “Can we trouble you for a moment of your time?”

Kit and I flashed our fabricated ID badges at him. As expected, he barely glanced at them. People rarely did, especially in times of grief.

He frowned, shoulders slumping further, but wordlessly stepped aside to let us in.

The actual police had left around ninety minutes ago, according to Felix’s monitoring of the Met’s digital network.

Mr Ashworth led us to the kitchen table, where an elderly lady sat with an untouched mug of tea. I reached out to shake her hand.

“Detective Morris,” I said smoothly, reciting the name on my badge. “And this is Detective Allan. ”

“Margaret. Sarah’s my daughter. Was my daughter.” She glanced at a family photo on the wall, where Sarah’s smile beamed back at them. “Is there another update already?”

“We’ve just been sent to clarify a few points, ma’am.”

“Let us start by offering our condolences,” interjected Kit.

I nodded, leaving a slight pause. “We intend to work tirelessly to find out what happened to Sarah.”

“The police just said they suspect it could be a rare poison. A toxic agent,” said Mr Ashworth.

“We’re hopeful the toxicology report will provide answers, and you’ll be the first to know,” Kit promised them.

“So what else can we help you with?” Margaret asked.

“Did Sarah mention any new people in her life recently?” I leaned forward slightly. “Perhaps someone through work, or even just a stranger who caught her attention?”

Margaret and Mr Ashworth exchanged glances before shaking their heads.

“She kept to herself mostly,” he said. “She liked to be home as much as possible.”

“In the weeks or days before her death, did Sarah complain about feeling unusually cold? Or perhaps experiencing vivid dreams or nightmares?”

Mr Ashworth’s brow furrowed. “Nightmares? What’s that got to do with it?”

“Some toxins can cause sleep disturbances,” Kit explained. “It could help narrow down what we’re looking for.”

Margaret’s hands tightened around her mug. “Now you mention it… she did call me last week. Said she couldn’t sleep. Something about… about shadows moving in her room.”

I caught Kit’s eye.

We worked through our prepared questions methodically. Was she spending time in any new places? Had she changed her usual routine in any way ?

The answers painted a picture of a woman whose life had a comfortable routine. Same route to work. Same supermarket. Same weekly call to her mother. Until the nightmares started.

Kit jotted down notes in his little black notebook, but we now both knew the truth—this was no poisoning. Sarah had been chosen by a cambion—possibly the same one that had marked Flynn.

I leaned forward in my chair, an old familiar posture that seemed to surface from somewhere in my bones. “And you’re absolutely certain Sarah never mentioned feeling extremely cold?” I pressed. “Particularly around her chest area?”

Mr Ashworth shook his head. “No, nothing like that.”

This made no sense. Every other symptom matched perfectly—the nightmares, the timing, the marks found on her body. The freezing sensation was always the first sign, the demon’s mark spreading its poison through the victim’s chest. Until they were ready to be harvested, just like Sarah had been.

And just like Flynn would be, in a matter of weeks.

My tie suddenly felt like a noose.

“Are you quite sure?” The words came out sharper than intended, my control slipping.

“Think carefully. Even the smallest detail could help us.” The cadence of my voice had shifted, taking on the measured tone of one who’d now spent centuries extracting truths, though not always for the right reasons.

Margaret flinched at my tone, and Mr Ashworth’s face hardened. “Yes, of course I’m sure,” he snapped.

Kit shot me a warning glance, and I realised I had risen slightly from my chair, looming over the grieving husband.

“What my colleague means,” Kit cut in. “Is that sometimes people mention things in passing that might not seem significant at the time. We’re just trying to build a complete picture of Sarah’s final days.”

I forced myself to step back, swallowing hard. These people had lost their daughter, their wife. They didn’t deserve my frustration .

This is why Kit tended to take the lead when talking to humans. Five hundred years of witnessing humanity’s grief had stripped away my ability to handle it with complete grace. Death had become a ledger entry, a problem to solve.

Perhaps that was my punishment—to spend eternity investigating deaths when I had once dealt them out so freely.

The memory surfaced like a drowning man: dark robes, the scratch of quill on parchment, recording confessions in a dimly lit chamber.

I had been so certain then, so righteous in my role as Inquisitor.

“We’ll be off now,” Kit said, and handed the man a business card. “But call this number if anything else comes to mind.”

We showed ourselves out. Clouds were now hiding the sun. I pulled my coat tighter around me, but it couldn’t protect me from Kit’s icy stare.

The walk back to the bus stop stretched in silence. Kit’s shoulders were tense—a sure sign he had something to say but was weighing his words carefully.

“Don’t let Flynn Carter’s residency at Killigrew Street compromise your judgement, boss.”

I almost stopped walking. “What?”

“Seven years I’ve served at Killigrew Street. In all that time, fewer than five individuals have been granted quarters upstairs.”